


The blood of Bacchus

by Goonlalagoon



Series: SPQR [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Camp Jupiter, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Not tagging all of the background Legion characters, Pre-The Heroes of Olympus, Pre-The Trials of Apollo, Second Titan War (Percy Jackson), The Twelfth Legion, canon typical levels of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24721894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: A year after becoming a full Legionaire of the Twelfth Legion, Jason Grace is just happy that things seem to be back to normal - until pinecones start raining down from the heavens in an unmistakeable show of godly power. Bacchus has a job for the Legion, and Jason's stuck right in the middle of it, not to mention stuck with an old (sort-of) friend and a decidedly unfriendly new arrival for company...Quests are dangerous, and this one might just be deadly - but for a Legionaire, it could also be a once in a lifetime chance to prove yourself to the gods themselves.Also, if they mess up then the world may possibly end. No pressure.[Or: part two of five following what Jason and the Romans were up to during the original PJO timeline]
Series: SPQR [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612669
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Nulla: Storm warnings

Thunder boomed, and abruptly I was floating in a storm cloud rather than curled up in bed. The clouds were blown along by the wind, carrying me along with them, over an unfamiliar landscape. I fought to get free, to drop down to the ground and see what, if anything, I recognised, but I couldn’t. The air didn’t listen to me, just kept tumbling and turning me in all directions. Electricity all around me made the hair on my arms rise, and a moment before it happened I guessed what was coming. Lighting leapt from the clouds to strike the ground, dragging me down with it. I was part of the lightning, electricity crackling through my veins, and I cried out - whether in pain or exhilaration I wasn’t certain.

When the thrill of being a bolt of lighting faded, I found I was suspended in the branches of a tree several feet off of the ground. It would be tricky to climb down, but happily I didn’t have to. Now that I was no longer in the clouds, I felt back in control of myself and the air currents around me. Enough so to risk a short flight to the ground, in any case. I leapt and glided, landing neatly at the base of the tree. It was a pine, a lonely sentinel on the peak of a hill. Everything more than a few feet beyond the base of the tree was wrapped in thick fog. I glanced at it warily. Call me suspicious, but it didn’t seem like normal mist to me - and when you’re a demigod, things that aren’t quite right tend to turn out to be deadly. My instincts screamed at me that whatever was hidden in the mist was dangerous. The air pressed against me again, almost urging me to take to the sky and leave, fly until I reached _my_ place, forget about this hill and its tree and the sense of creeping wrongness.

But the tree _itself_ didn’t feel wrong - or rather, it didn’t feel _bad._ There was something solemn and lonely about it, but it was…comforting. Welcoming. The mist was making every instinct in me scream to flee, but the tree was calling me to stay, to fight whatever told me to leave. I’d never been a massive fan of running away anyway, and I was curious. I didn’t usually get much of an emotional reaction to _plants_ , of all things. I rested a hand on the trunk, feeling the rough bark under my palm, comfortingly solid.

It _pulsed_ , and electricity surged through it - through me - through the sky - and lighting struck again. This time the tree split, falling away. I was dissolving, being blown away by the roaring wind, the mist closing in around me, struggling to stay and understand what I was seeing. Where the tree had stood lay a girl, older than me, dark hair rough cut, clothes bloodstained and torn as though she’d been fighting for her life. For a moment I thought she was dead, then her eyes opened, staring up at the sky - at me. For a heartbeat our eyes met, and I thought she saw me. I _knew_ her - I didn’t know where from, I couldn’t remember when - but when I tried to call out to her, ask her who she was, I was drowned out by the roaring of the wind.

I sat up with a gasp, panting for breath and glaring at the foot of my bunk. What in the name of the dream-sending Oneiroi had _that_ been about? A shift in the air of the barracks told me that the door had opened. Someone padded softly along the lines of bunks, too quiet to disturb anyone still asleep - nobody appreciated having their sleep disturbed in Camp. Days of Roman-style military training were too full and too tiring; the last thing anyone needed was to be sleep deprived as well. I wasn’t surprised when one of the Fifth Cohort’s centurions peered over the foot of my bunk, stepping up onto the base of the empty bunk below to look into mine.

Mel’s frown deepened when she saw I was awake too.

“What’s up?” She glanced about, checking that my whisper hadn’t woken the other occupants of the cabin.

“I’m not certain. I…had an odd dream, and I wanted to check on you.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, it probably wasn’t even to do with you. It just…felt like it was. I think something big has happened, somewhere.” I nodded. Demigod - children of a mortal and a Roman god, like Mel and me - dreams were strange; if they weren’t clearly regular dreams, they were often either visions or portents, sometimes messages from the gods. Whichever it was, any of them usually meant trouble.

 _Just_ what I needed.


	2. I. You look like a pirate, and other things not to say

Guard duty is dull. There’s no way around it; it’s just undeniably boring. Admittedly, boring is usually the preferable option - when it’s not boring, it’s generally because something is attacking, and that means you’re probably in quite a bit of danger. But _still._ Standing staring at a near empty road for four hours was _not_ the ideal start to my day, particularly when there was still a morning run between me and breakfast when guard duty was over.

Anya, my friend and fellow guard, yawned and grimaced.

“At least it’s still August?” She gestured to the empty brazier tucked into a niche just inside the tunnel, and I nodded. The worst time of year to have early morning guard duty was the weeks before winter really set in, or soon after it had ended, when it was cold enough before dawn that you really _wanted_ to light the brazier for warmth, but officially weren’t allowed to. People often did anyway; most of the time your replacements wouldn’t report you, though sometimes they were mean and did. With the Fifth already being in the doghouse we wouldn’t have dared risk it even if it was freezing. We would _not_ be popular with our cohort if we got a third week of early morning duty added onto our existing punishment, and not just because of the antisocial hours. It was the end of summer; the Legion had disbanded for a week of leave before the start of the Fall school term, to give those with family time to see them before we fell back into the term-time schedule. An extra week of early duty would mean everyone else coming back to find they were being punished because of us.

A car drove by, lights dazzlingly bright. We both watched until it was out of sight. This early in the morning we weren’t even seeing much traffic, and anything to break the monotony was welcome. The guy behind the wheel didn’t so much as glance at us, as though kids dressed in full Roman armour were a perfectly normal sight. On this stretch of road they admittedly were, but he actually hadn’t seen us at all - the Mist had seen to that. The entire valley that held Camp Jupiter and New Rome was swathed in the Mist, a shield that kept us hidden from prying mortal eyes. It was handy stuff, though it also unnerved me a little. Not that long ago someone had used the Mist not to hide from mortal eyes, but to twist the attention of _everyone_ at Camp Jupiter away from themselves, hiding in plain sight until they could try to assassinate Lupa, the wolf goddess who was officially the head of the Legion. They’d failed - but it had been a closer call than any of us would have liked.

I was shaken out of my gloomy recollections by a rock bouncing off the back of my helmet, the force making me stumble.

“Ow.” A quiet _shush_ of metal was Anya drawing her sword, turning side to side to search out the threat. Shaking my head to clear it I did the same.

“ _There_.” Anya jerked her head at the hill behind us. Craning my neck to see what she had spotted I saw movement, low to the ground, followed by a larger figure and a flash of colour.

“ _Wolves_.” She nodded. We were both familiar with that seemingly effortless lope, and relaxed a little. The presence of wolves - at least, non-angry wolves - suggested this was a visitor, not an attacker, though the back of my head disagreed. We waited a moment, but no-one was forthcoming. Anya jerked her head, and I nodded. Bending my knees I jumped, and shot into the sky like a cork out of a bottle. It was starting to get light, that grey pre-dawn glow that fills the world with soft shadows. The wolves blended into them perfectly, but their companion stood out. It helped that she’d scrambled up from her half-crouch to track me as I moved. Floating out of arms reach, I looked her over. Maybe a year or so older than me, dark hair and eyes, tan skin. She had the wary look of someone who’d been fighting off monsters, but not the ragged look of someone who’d been overwhelmed by it all - what we generally called an ‘informed recruit’, then. It was the bright red jacket that had caught my attention, a long coat with fancy buttons and trim, sleeves folded back several times to make it fit. I said the first thing that popped into my head.

“You look like a pirate!” She glared at me coldly, and I felt the welcoming smile melt off my face. _I_ thought having a pirate jacket was pretty cool, but apparently it had been the wrong thing to say. I guess pirates weren’t traditionally the nicest thing to be compared to. “A…pretty…pirate..?” My attempt to backtrack failed miserably - I sounded like a twerp, and she looked _even more_ insulted. “Um. D’you want a lift down? It’s pretty treacherous footing.” She sighed, glancing down at the wolves with a _really? THESE are the people you want me to consort with?_ look, and looked back at me as though I was an annoying fly.

“You don’t know who I am. You don’t know where I’m from. You don’t know you can trust me.” I shrugged.

“I know _them_.” I gestured vaguely at the wolves. “At some point you’ll have been to the Wolf House, and been sent here with their occasional company to find us. And who says I trust you? I’m offering you a lift down a hill, not the keys to the gate.” She didn’t crack a smile, just rolled her eyes and glanced down the hill. I could practically see her pride warring with the knowledge that it was going to be an unpleasant (and undignified) scramble to reach the patiently waiting Anya.

“How, _exactly,_ do you plan to give me a lift?”

If she’d been unimpressed at my pirate ice-breaker, she really wasn’t pleased at having to be piggy-backed down the hill. I wasn’t thrilled either - she didn’t look strong, but her arms were wiry and either she was naturally good at killing people or she was trying to strangle me. But she’d absolutely shot down the usual I’ll-just-grab-you-round-the-middle-like-a-jet-pack approach I’d worked on with my friends in the Fifth Legion. Anya was particularly taken with this, and reckoned if we could get it working so that she could shoot while I flying her about we’d be a deadly combo. _I_ thought she should just ride one of the giant eagles if she’s that keen to be an airborne missile. I’d gotten pretty good at flying, but I was still a bit shaky over any length of time, and surprise maneuvers still sent me into aerial acrobatics. I did _not_ want to find out what would happen if we added a bow and arrows into that mix.

Once we’d landed - _without_ crashing, thankfully - she apparently decided to ignore my existence entirely.

“This is the entrance to the Twelfth Legion.” It wasn’t a question, though she waited politely for an answer.

“Yes. You’re a new recruit?” Anya didn’t bat an eyelid as one of the wolves slunk down the hill. I grinned as he snuffled in a friendly fashion at one of my hands, and let me scratch behind one of his ears. The wolves of Lupa’s pack weren’t tame in the slightest, but they liked me - both because I’d only been a toddler when I was left with the pack to be brought to Camp Jupiter so had sort of been adopted as pack, and because I’d saved Lupa’s life the year before. It made up a little for the dismissive look our new recruit gave me before turning back to Anya.

“Yes. Lupa said I could join the Legion.” Anya nodded.

“You’ll need to be taken to the praetors for a final interview.” She glanced at me. “One of us will take you to them. Jace?”

“Why don’t you take her on to Camp? Vi probably isn’t up yet, but I bet Mel wouldn’t mind us letting her crash in the spare barracks for a couple of hours.” She hesitated a fraction longer, not wanting to discuss too much in front of a stranger and risk being rude. We both knew that whoever headed back would be effectively off guard duty for the rest of the morning - at this time of day, escorting a newbie meant staying with them while you waited for one of the praetors to officially be up and running the camp. I smiled to show that I meant it, and she didn’t need to be polite and object at the unexpected break. She gave me a quick smile and nodded briskly.

“Okay. I’ll show you where to go..?”

“Reyna.” They disappeared down the tunnel, the wolf padding after them, and I resumed my lonely guard duty.

The last hour and a half of guard duty were uneventful. My replacement - a veteran from New Rome prepared to cover the morning training slot - raised an eyebrow when they found only one person, but didn’t press it. _Officially_ Anya should have woken someone else to keep an eye on Reyna and come back to guard duty, but it was another one of those rules that people tended to disregard. I had to jog to get back to the Fifth cohort barracks in time to dump my armour before the morning run. One of the most unfair things about staying at Camp during the break was that if you were around you still had to do the morning run and roll call. Sure, everyone was under orders to run and do a set workout each day, but at least those of my fellow Legionnaires who decided to get up for a six a.m. run while they were home _chose_ to get up at that time, rather than risking their centurions dumping cold water on them if they were so much as half a minute late.

Anya jogged over as roll call was starting, and stood to attention next to Victoria, the acting centurion of the First cohort, until the other girl turned to her. The legacy of Venus took her sweet time about it, and I grimaced. _Of course_ Victoria would want to spin it out rather than just accepting the message and getting on with things. If Anya shared my irritation, she hid it well.

“Well?”

“Violet is dealing with a new recruit to the Legion. She won't be joining us for the run, and says to go on as usual.”

“Dismissed.” Anya trotted over to join Mel and me, rolling her eyes.

“’ _Dismissed_ _’._ Who died and made _her_ the boss? Don’t answer that.” We grinned back. The First cohort were the apple of the Legion’s collective eye. Being temporary centurion for her cohort effectively _did_ elevate Victoria to being the boss in the absence of Violet, even when full centurions like Mel were present. For all that Mel was was one of the centurions, she was one of Fifth cohort's, which meant she held joint lowest ranking in the officer’s hierarchy.

“What’s the new recruit like?” Anya thought for a moment as we set off, easing into a familiar pace.

“Contained. She wasn’t thrown by _anything_ , not even the usual ‘oh, I was so shocked - a talking _wolf_!’ Already knows she’s a daughter of Bellona, but didn’t say how. Should be interesting. Didn’t seem to like you much, Jace.” I grimaced.

“I’d _noticed_ , thanks. So long as she’s not in the Fifth, I think I’ll live - she won’t be in the barracks to murder me in my sleep.”

Reyna was officially announced to the Legion at morning muster. It was a pretty skeleton crew; most of the Legionnaires were off visiting family, or in the case of some of the older ones taking a road trip to enjoy the end of the summer. Octavian, the camp augur and one of the First cohort’s centurions, rattled off his usual long winded acceptance speech, and listed the recommendations Reyna had brought with her. These were usually letters of support from old Legionaries, recommending her for acceptance to the Legion. She only had one, and that not from a long acquaintance, which was enough to lose the interest of the First cohort. The only new recruit they’d ever put their neck out to stand for with fewer then four strong recommending letters had been _me_ ; apparently even a daughter of Bellona wasn’t quite the draw that the thought of a son of Jupiter had been.

The Second piped up in support, pounding shields on the hard packed dirt to show their acceptance. The sound was kinda puny and lost, seeing as there were only five of them, but they got their point across well enough. To exactly no one’s surprise, Reyna accepted their offer, and became a _probatio_ in the Second cohort, striding over to join their ranks with supreme confidence. To be honest, I was a little jealous of her composure - even after spending most of my life in the Legion I didn’t manage to act as calm and controlled. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to deal with that disdain on a regular basis when Mel clapped me on the shoulder with a wicked grin.

“Ready for our daily Circuits of Doom?”

I groaned. I really _really_ wasn’t.


	3. II. Circuits of Doom

For those of you lucky enough never to have experienced the joy that is the Twelfth Legion’s “vacation” training program, I envy you. For those experienced Legionnaires who have, I apologise for the montage of repressed memories of pain in the name of fitness that I undoubtedly caused to play on loop on the back of your eyelids just by mentioning them.

The Circuits of Doom are the accumulated invention of generations of praetors and centurions, designed to provide an intense workout that could, theoretically, be done at home (but please don’t try!). Compared to the normal training schedule, they weren’t actually _that_ bad, but it’s hard to remember that when you’re in the middle of two hundred star jumps and know it’s just the _start_ of the warm up. It didn’t help that what had been a pleasantly warm early morning for guard duty had turned into baking hot August day. The combination of sun, exercise, and full armour meant everyone was sweating buckets and panting before we were even done warming up.

Vi, the seventeen year old trans girl who was the female praetor and therefore one of the masterminds behind the training schedule, bellowed out the exercises and kept time, watching eagle-eyed for slackers. The centurions had the same task, keeping an eye mostly on their own cohort. It was considered slacking on _their_ part if their own group got called out for showing insufficient commitment, both because in theory we reflected their management and because it suggested they weren’t paying enough attention to shout at us themselves.

By the time we were done with the warm up star jumps and press ups, and onto dynamic stretching, I could feel my sweat dampened t-shirt sticking to my skin under my armour.

“ _CALL THAT A LEG SWING, GRACE?_ ” I flinched away from the combined roar of Mel and Vi, grimacing, and dragged my attention from my discomfort back to what I was supposed to be doing. I _had_ started going through the motions rather than actually trying to stretch properly - a major mistake in a Legion workout. Not warming up properly led to injury. The Camp healers would patch you up no problem, but that just put you back in good form for a lecture about sensible training attitudes, by the end of which you wouldn’t be entirely certain they’d done you a favour.

“Alright cohorts! Assemble around a bar and figure out your starting exercises! Move it!” Ranged around the edge of the main practice field were several chin up bars, worked into the fence like bizarre crenelations, flanked by punching bags some poor Legionnaire had had to set up before the morning run. The members of each cohort ranged themselves in a loose semi-circle around one, arguing over who started on which exercise and working out who they were following. With her usual good sense for the state of organisation of the Legion, no sooner had people just about settled things when Vi shouted for the start of circuits. She herself had joined Second Cohort, at least for the first twenty minute circuit, I guessed with the intention of keeping an eye on Reyna along with their present centurion, Anika. A quick glance over while I jumped for the pull up bar suggested she was worrying for no reason - pirate girl seemed to be having no problem whatsoever beating the living daylights out of the punch-bag.

After that first glance, I didn’t have any attention to spare for anything outside of listening for the call to “ALL CHANGE”. Changeovers were quick - you didn’t get any rest between exercises, and if you dawdled you got shouted at (surprise surprise) - and the whole point of the circuits was you pounded out as many of each exercise as you could in a minute, so from the word go my heart was racing and I was having to think about my breathing. _Inhale_ on recovery, _exhale_ with the work. I thought I could actually _feel_ the hot, dry air rasping around my lungs as I gasped and tried not to wheeze too noticeably as I stumbled from exercise to exercise. Before we were even halfway through the first circuit, the packed dirt was spotted with drops of sweat and my palms were _coated_ in a kind of dust-mud from press ups, thanks to the thin sheen of sweat that covered everything. When the call for a break finally came, I pretty much just dropped down where I was standing. Most of my friends did the same. Mel chucked my water bottle at me and sat with her back to the fence. After a moment I dragged off my helmet, resigned to the disgusting feeling of having to put it back on for the _next_ twenty minutes of pain. I knew it made sense to train in full armour - we had to be able to do all kinds of stuff wearing it, so it was a good idea to get used to the weight and any restrictions it made, but it was a _pain._ At least when we were doing legion stuff - formations, swordplay, that kind of thing - it felt _appropriate_. For circuits it just felt unnecessary.

“Alright folks, lets change things round a bit.” Anya and I exchanged weary grimaces. That was _never_ a good sentence for the commanding officer to lead off with in a training session. “Anyone starting on pull ups, move one cohort down. People on burpees, one up. Those on press ups, two down. Work the rest out!” We all scrambled to figure out where we had to move to. It was chaos for a few minutes as people did the mental arithmetic and shifted into place. I had it easy; one cohort down for the Fifth meant going to the First - an irony that never failed to amuse us and annoy them, which was always a good thing in my book. I struggled to hide my smirk when Victoria stalked back over to the First’s station. In the confusion she’d apparently forgotten that as one of those on an exercise designated to move round five places, she was actually supposed to stay put. She pointedly ignored me, so I gave up on pretending I wasn’t grinning to myself.

“Aaannd - go!” I gave myself a little boost of air to get me up to the pull up bar. Mel kept promising I’d grow _soon_ , but at twelve I was still too short to reach the bar without scrambling up the ladder-like posts to the side. Someone huffed in irritation behind me, but I didn’t have time to look back and see what I’d done, busy trying not to accidentally let go of the bar thanks to my sweat-slicked hands. It was quite a challenge. When I was in the middle of plank, glaring at the ground and counting down the seconds someone didn’t quite manage it, slipping to the ground with a _thud_ and a stifled yelp. I glanced up, distracted, and a red faced Reyna scrambled to her feet and wiped her hands on the edge of her t-shirt. She caught me watching and deliberately turned her back, clambering back up to grab hold of the bar again.

When the session _finally_ ended, I expressed my joy the best way I knew - turning my last squat jump of the day into an airborne somersault. Anya whooped and clapped, and I caught sight of Mel grinning as she began to stretch. They were used to my antics - and could remember plenty of times that I had ploughed headfirst into the ground or landed in a belly-flop in the dust while mastering the trick.

“ _Show off._ ” The voice was quiet enough that I doubted I was supposed to hear it - I probably wouldn’t have if the air currents around me weren’t still being distorted as I touched down lightly. Without thinking I turned to see where they had come from, frowning, a little hurt. A moment too late it occurred to me that letting on that I’d heard was maybe not the best idea, but Reyna had already seen me turn and registered my expression. For a moment she looked almost guilty, then angry, and she stalked back to her own cohort. Feeling unsettled, I trudged back to mine.

Thankfully, after the Circuits of Doom we had the rest of the day pretty much to ourselves. Mel ordered us to spring clean the barracks, seeing as they were mostly empty and there weren’t people in the way. She’d decided years ago that the best way to keep the barracks in a livable condition was to make it a rule that _everyone_ had to do a thorough clean out and tidy up when they packed to go home for the summer, winter and spring breaks. We had to keep things in military precision for the most part anyway, but even so, you ended up with a surprising amount of food wrappers kicked under the bed, odd socks that had somehow ended up hidden in the rafters, that sort of thing. But it fell to those of us who stayed to do the final in-depth clean, scrubbing and sweeping.

I was the only one in the boy’s barracks for this particular break, and the gloom I’d felt at the end of Circuits, largely blown away by the friendly chatter of Mel and Anya, rose up again. I mean, it was technically the holidays, and here I was, sweeping, dusting, polishing and cleaning a barracks built to hold twenty people - not that it was ever really full - all on my own. While the rest of my cohort were off seeing their families. I couldn’t even _remember_ my mortal family, not really. I had vague memories of kind words and gentle hands, of being carried and pushed on a swing. But I couldn’t remember faces, or names. Maybe that was for the best. After all - no matter how much nice stuff I remembered, in the end they’d given me to the wolves, literally. Sometimes I thought about seeing if I could find anything out. Lupa had told me my surname was Grace, and maybe that would be enough of a lead. I never did, though. Even if there were few enough people with the surname “Grace” in the USA for me to figure it out, what would I do? Pitch up out of the blue like a thunderbolt and say “Hi. Remember me? You left me in a wolf enclosure when I was three!”?

The only upside to the room being empty other than me was that I could cheat - just a little. Seeing as everyone had to tidy up all their stuff and strip the beds when they left for the week, I figured it couldn’t hurt to whip up a brisk breeze rather than dusting and sweeping by hand. In my head, it was great. A little scurrying wind whisked around the nooks and crannies of the room, picking up the stubborn bits of dust that no-one could quite find enough motivation to clean in the usual weekly tidy up and blowing them straight out of the window, saving me a whole load of time and effort.

It started out alright, a little twirling wind that I could direct easily enough, gradually becoming visible as it picked up dirt and the odd bit of litter that had fallen between cracks in the plank floor. Then it just…got away from me a little as I got distracted by being pleased with myself, and rather than a helpful breeze I was dealing with something that was, more or less, a miniature cyclone. I only just managed to stop it throwing a chair across the room, lunging at it and flapping my arms desperately, shooing it back to the centre of the floor. It was getting stronger every second, picking up speed and dragging more air into itself, getting bigger and bigger. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face, the strain of holding my creation in place starting to get to me. I blinked, salt stinging my eyes, and my control wavered for a moment. The cyclone drifted, picking up not just dirt - it also dragged in my t-shirt, chucked over the foot-board of my bunk that morning while I was hunting for the right clothes and half asleep. So much for my ‘oh well, there’s nothing in the room to pick up other than the dirt!’ justification. Cursing, I dragged the cyclone back under control and tried to stop it.

It didn’t want to listen. I bore down with every ounce of willpower I had, and it just wavered. I tried to force it to stop, to collapse, to do anything, and it just wouldn’t go. I may have started it, but it wasn’t going to do what I wanted anytime soon. Problem was, if I just let it loose, who knew how much damage it would do - to camp, to New Rome, to the surrounding mortal world? And if I _did_ decide I could risk that, it wasn’t like no-one at camp (or New Rome) would know _exactly who was responsible_.

Sometimes being the only child of the Sky God sucks. You can’t pretend those kind of mistakes as having not been you, no idea what happened here, honest.

There was a knock on the door, and the cyclone broke free again. Unfortunately, it headed for the door itself, and in desperation I threw myself forwards, arms outstretched. I landed on it in a belly flop, and for a moment it held together, twisting under me as a platform of air and spinning me around until I was dizzy. Then it collapsed, abruptly, wind puffing to all corners of the room, and I dropped to the floor. Anya heard my yelp and stuck her head in, puzzled. She frowned.

“Jace, what _happened_ to this place? We’re supposed to be _cleaning_ , not throwing dirt everywhere!”

“I had a slight…accident.” I sat up, rubbing my forehead where it had slammed into the floor. She sighed and came in.

“Mel and I are all done. She’s giving Alexi’s barracks a final clean - he gave her permission and a list of all the traps before heading home, but she doesn’t want us in there as well - and said we can do the rec room later if we wanted to go for a walk or something. C’mon, I’ll help you finish up.” She looked around again. The collapsing cyclone had thrown dust _everywhere_. “Actually, I’ll help you _start_.”

The week fell into the usual vacation pattern. Get up, either early for guard duty or at the leisurely hour of 5:45 A.M. (yes, in the _holidays_ ), run and swim morning combo, breakfast, Circuits of Doom, an hour or so of chores, and then free time. New Rome has things to do, thankfully, or we all would have been bored stiff after the first couple of days. Those days we mostly slept - well, _I_ did, anyway _-_ trying to be fresh for the coming season of school and training. Fall term always felt hardest to me; it was the time when you had the longest to get out of the swing of the term schedule, so struggled the most with getting back into it. I spent most of my spare time wandering around New Rome with Anya and Mel, curling up with books in a cafe, visiting the latest art exhibition at the University. There were worse ways to spend a week, but even with the whole city there, the options were kinda limited, and I was glad when the end of the week rolled around. I’d feel differently on the first day back at school, I knew, but that was a problem for _future_ Jason.

“Pick up the _pace_! C’mon, this is the last round!” Gasping, hoping that my heart wasn’t actually about to burst out of my ears, I leapt for the pull up bar for the last time. _Just one more set, and you don_ _’t have to do this workout for another few months_. My arms were screaming at me, and I just couldn’t ignore them. I had to fight the temptation to use the wind around me to give me a little extra lift, but it would be too obvious. I _did_ let myself use it to get myself back up after lowering myself down as slowly as possible - the accepted alternative when you couldn’t manage actual pull ups, which at this point I couldn’t.

“THIRTY SECONDS!” I gritted my teeth and for a moment thought I’d been too vigorous about it, because there was a loud _crack!_. I felt the shudder through the bar in my hands and looked around, puzzled. I wasn’t heavy enough to break the bar, not when it was checked over and repaired every vacation.

The wooden fence was _sprouting_.

“JASON, REYNA, get on with -” Violet spluttered into quiet, staring at the fence as well. The wood under my palms _twisted_ , bulging. Leafy tendrils pushed between my fingers. A yelp off to my side was Reyna, the only other person on pull ups - I guessed the bar she clung to was also turning back into a live plant. She let go and dropped neatly to the ground, bending her knees as she landed to take the impact. I dropped away too, calling up air currents to lower myself gently to the ground, still staring. The fence was still there - in a way. It had turned to grape vines, twisting along where there had once been posts and planks, apparently trained to a frame that was no longer there.

As we all instinctively stepped away from the fence, the wind picked up and it began to rain pine cones.


	4. III. Teddy Bear Entrails

It didn’t take long for the story to spread to everyone on their return to Camp - if they hadn’t heard it on the mini-bus ride from San Fransisco to the valley that held Camp Jupiter and New Rome, they pretty soon saw the still flourishing vine fence or heard people talking about it at dinner. Octavian could be seen at all hours scurrying around clutching stuffed toys on his way to the temple of Jupiter Maximus - also known to me as “Father’s place” - to read the fluffy entrails and try to work out what was going on. The only thing anyone was certain of was that it had been a message of some kind from Bacchus. Unfortunately, that was as far as it went. It wasn’t exactly the calm start to the new term that anyone had hoped for, but the centurions and praetors did their best.

“I’m dying. Seriously, I’m going to die. Plan my funeral for me, Jace.”

“Why do _I_ have to plan it?”

“Because last time I asked Anya to she decided it sounded like a great idea to burn me in a viking boat -”

“Which you totally agreed was an awesome funeral!”

“- yeah, but you then decided that it would also be appropriate to serve seafood to the reception while playing “The Circle of Life”, and I hate seafood and that film always makes me cry.” Anya caught my eye behind Pablo’s back and rolled her eyes expressively. I grinned, and clapped Pablo on the back.

“C’mon, you managed this all last year. How hard can it be?” He glared at me.

“You _wait_ , Jason Grace. You wait until _you_ are fifteen, and then you tell me that this isn’t going to be hard.” I waved them off to class with a grin, which faded a little as I wandered towards my own classroom.

The schools in New Rome are pretty small - unsurprisingly, seeing as the city is only home to a couple of hundred people. Pretty much all the kids are in the Legion, so at least there were always familiar faces. _Too_ familiar faces, sometimes - I’d seen about half my class on the morning run, at muster, and at breakfast. Sam, one of my sort-of friends in the Fourth cohort, was already slumped across a desk, bag up on a chair to claim it for me. We exchanged weary smiles as I sat. The run hadn’t been any more tiring than usual - but we all knew that it was going to be an exhausting few days as we got back into the habit of juggling school and the Legion training.

The plus side was we only had to do half-days if we were in the Legion, though it meant we didn’t get to do some of the more fun subjects, and obviously we didn't have to do any of the school sport sessions either. Math, on the other hand, was definitely a required subject and dreaded almost universally by the Legionnaires. Most demigods have something akin to dyscalculia, sometimes along with mild dyslexia. So far as we can figure, it’s a side effect of godly blood - we’re hard wired for reading in Latin, and for looking at Roman numerals. The school in New Rome was used to it and over the years had tried to set themselves up to wrok around it, but even so I'd never met a demigod who honestly felt it was their favourite subject.

Then again, no one in my math class seemed to think it was a thrilling way to spent an hour.

Afternoon Legion training for the first week was always a mix of fitness and formation work, making sure that everyone woke back up to the basics and got used to working together again. It’s amazing how much people can forget in even a couple of weeks, but I always figured it was a _little_ overkill - not that I minded going completely back to basics for the first week of term, while I got used to having _homework_ again. After dinner the Fifth pretty much all decided to stay in the mess hall to work. Most of us found that if we went back to our barracks and sat on the spare bunks, we’d either end up talking or falling asleep where we sat, and then we’d have detention on top of everything else. Mel waved a farewell and headed off into New Rome for the evening, leaving us to get on with it. She was the oldest in the Legion, and was already long done with school. She had an evening job babysitting for various families in New Rome; most people knew her, and knew she was good at looking after small kids - after all, she’d pretty much raised _me_.

I was struggling with my math question sheet, trying to be a good student and _not_ decide to leave it until the weekend, when a shadow fell across the page. I glanced up to find Victoria glaring down at me, arms folded and scowling.

“Um…hi?”

“Octavian wants to talk to you.” I blinked at her. “ _Now_. Go on. He’s heading up to the temple.” She turned on her heel to return to her barracks, grumbling about _stupid augurs who can_ _’t take five minutes to deliver their own messages_ , while I shoved my books into my bag.

“What does the scarecrow want with _you_?”

“He’s not a _scarecrow_.” I protested. Octavian was a sort of friend, though also sort of not. It mostly depended on his mood, really, because he could be really, _really_ insufferable if you caught him on a bad day. “Just…” Tall, thin, and somehow always looks buried in his own clothes. “Just _Octavian_.” Pablo took my bag and promised to leave it on my bunk. I nodded my thanks and headed for the Temple Road.

It was petty, but I deliberately took my time - up to a point, at least. Octavian was the Camp augur, and a centurion; he had authority, though not as much as the praetors. He also _liked_ having authority, and while I wouldn’t agree with Victoria to her face on sheer principle, the fact that he wouldn’t bother to come and look for me himself sat badly.

I felt kinda guilty when I did reach the Temple, though. Up close, he looked worn out. You wouldn’t think that slicing open teddy bears and poking through stuffing would be tiring, but he looked like he hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days.

“You, uh, wanted to talk to me?” He nodded and waved a hand without looking up from the alter, a silent order to wait and stay quiet. I tapped my foot and looked around while he poked and twisted his head like an owl, trying to see messages in the teddy bear entrails. I was inspecting my father’s statue, trying and failing to pick out any similarities, when he finally straightened up.

“Look there. See?” I peered dutifully at the mess on the alter, but all I saw was white fluff.

“No.” He groaned and traced a shape in the air over one section.

“Much is unclear, but _that_ seems to speak of a son of the sky. Logically, that could refer to a few different things, but the most likely is a literal son of the sky.”

“Me.” He nodded, frowning a little. I’d probably interrupted a prepared speech. Octavian liked to sound fancy when he was being augur, so that people would have to ask him to explain what he meant the whole time and make him feel extra important.

“ _This_ bit over herecould represent several things as well, but given recent events I believe it translates best to _“Bacchus”_ ” I squinted at the lump he indicated, nodding sagely as though I could tell in the slightest.

“Looks a little like a pine cone, so long as it’s supposed to be covered in snow.” He snorted, then scowled to cover his amusement. I hid a grin. My stomach had started to twist and turn itself into knots - excitement, and not a little fear. There weren’t many reasons that Octavian would specifically ask for _me_ to come up to the Temple to read entrails with him.

“I’m still trying to decipher more, but one thing seems very clear. Bacchus is setting the Camp a quest - and it looks like you’re going to be part of it, Grace. Pick a toy.” Caught in a moment of conflicting joy and pants-wetting worry, I was taken aback for a moment, and he sighed like I was being an utter fool. “Behind the alter. Sometime this evening would be nice.”

I hunted through the basket of toys, and picked out a fluffy pink pig. Bacchus had always preferred sacrifices of goats and swine, creatures that ate or dug up vines, so it seemed appropriate. More to the point, the thing had terrifying googly eyes and an expression that was probably _supposed_ to be a smile but was actually more of a threatening grimace, and I didn’t feel too bad about consigning it to the chop. The others were just too cute, and honestly I’d never fully forgiven Octavian for sacrificing my wolf cuddly toy when I first arrived. I didn’t remember much about the whole day, but _that_ had sure stuck with me.

Octavian nodded his approval at my selection, and swept the remains of whatever the previous sacrifice had been into the overflowing bin set to the side of the alter. His knife flashed impressively, and the pig’s stuffing fell across the alter. The sun was setting, and for a queasy moment the light turned it a bloody red. I looked away, shuddering, but Octavian either didn’t notice or was used to it. He muttered to himself as he sorted through the entrails, and he sounded happy about what he was seeing, so I guessed the message was clearer than it had been. Eventually I got bored of waiting and left, yawning. I’d find out what the message was sooner or later - sleep was sounding like a much more appealing idea.

The summons to the Praetor’s office came the next evening. Vi and Rich were reading over a sheet of paper covered in Octavian’s spindly scrawl, murmuring quietly to each other. I stood to attention in front of the desk until Octavian came in, at which point Rich sat back.

“Sit.” Vi pushed a bowl of sweets towards me with a brief smile, just to reassure me I wasn’t in trouble. Rich had an ability to make me feel like I was, even when I knew for certain I hadn’t done anything. “Octavian says he already spoke to you about the possibility of a quest?” I nodded, and she gave a wry smile. Octavian cleared his throat.

“I thought it was necessary in order to get a clearer message…” Rich nodded, tapping a pen absently against the desk.

“…and we told you to do whatever was necessary to find out what Bacchus wishes us to know.” _But you still should have asked permission_ was the unspoken subtext. I chewed as quietly as I could, not wanting to be the one to break the awkward silence that fell. Finally, Rich felt he’d made the point and continued. “It seems that it worked. Octavian, could you please fill Jason in on the finer details of what you’ve…read?” He nodded and turned to me, drawing himself up as tall as possible without actually standing on tip toe.

“So far as I can decipher, the message goes ‘By…something like _festival_ …presence regain,…something about madness, I think. It has the sense of a warning. The last bit is clearer - the scion of the sky seeks the path, and spears neath dark waves yield.’” He shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “It’s…incomplete, I can feel that, but…the messages from the gods are rarely easy to fully interpret.”

“It will have to be enough.” Violet took over again. “Jason, the only thing that is _really_ certain is that _you_ are important to this quest. We have no idea why, but we’ll find out.” She frowned. “As to the rest…Rich and I have been thinking about it, and all we can decipher is that you’re being asked to find something and return it.” I nodded, hoping she wouldn’t ask me to provide any ideas. Aside from having none, I was regretting deciding to take a toffee from the bowl, and wasn’t entirely certain I could actually open my mouth. She sighed. “Not for the first time, I wish the gods had a more reliable way of sending us messages. We work with what we have, however.” She shot a warning look at Octavian, forestalling his favourite rant about the possibility of finding a more reliable method of predicting the future. “The quest will be taken before the senate tomorrow night. If the matter is serious enough that Bacchus has decided to convert our training ground into a vineyard, it is most likely urgent. You must attend school as usual, but you are granted the afternoon off from training - use the time to think over what the quest may mean, and to review your equipment. We -” She gestured to herself and Rich “- will discuss potential companions, though this will of course be in part dependent upon the decisions of the senate. Dismissed.” I saluted, and left, still chewing my toffee.

Mel was waiting for me in the barracks, seated cross legged on the empty bunk below mine, fiddling with her long braid. She looked worried, but didn’t say anything until I’d settled myself next to her.

“Quest?” I nodded, a grin splitting my face in two. She sighed, but forced a smile. Some of my excitement faded. Of course to Mel, a quest would sound like my death warrant. I’d always be a three year old to her in some ways, the third younger brother she’d never expected to have and was always responsible for.

It could well _be_ a death warrant. But it was also a rare chance to do something amazing, and we both knew I needed those wherever I could get them - children of Jupiter aren’t allowed to be mediocre, not really. And the Fifth cohort needed a lucky break, something to make the other cohorts back off and let us catch our breath rather than being everyone’s scape goat. I’d made some headway with that the previous year by dramatically foiling a traitor’s attempt to kill Lupa, but it was amazing how quickly everything had gone back to normal.

“I have the afternoon off tomorrow to think about it, and the senate meets in the evening.” She nodded and squared her shoulders.

“Right. Tell us the quest, then.” Pablo settled himself on the bunk opposite, patting Dakota’s feet until he moved them out of the way, grumbling at being ordered to move from his own bed. Anya clambered up the ladder to my bunk and sat, feet swinging in and out of my view. The rest of the cohort shuffled to sit nearby - someone hollered “COHORT CHATROOM” out of the window, and the rest of the girls and Alexei, the second centurion who lived in a separate barracks, left what they were doing to gather round. They’d all been waiting for me to get back, I realised. Waiting to hear the quest and start brainstorming. My nerves settled, and I relaxed. Sympathetic adults in New Rome could say what they liked about ‘that poor boy raised by the Legion’ - I had the _best_ family.


	5. IV. The Senate Speaks at Length

“…the entrails are clear on few details of this quest; Octavian, if you will recite what you were able to glean?” Octavian cleared his throat and squared his scrawny shoulders before reciting the fragments of the quest he’d deciphered. He rubbed the bridge of his nose absently.

“And, of course, we already know that this Quest is on the behalf of Bacchus. Other than that, little is clear except that the leader of this quest is the son of the sky - Jason Grace.” There was an uneasy murmuring, and I fidgeted in my seat. I could pick out snatches of conversation from around me.

“Only been a Legionnaire for a year!”

“..yes, but he’s been part of the Legion since he was three, surely that counts for something -”

“Laws are clear! Quests may only be led by a full centurion!”

“But a son of Jupiter…”

Rich called for silence, raising his voice just enough to be heard throughout the auditorium. The crowd settled down to listen. He waited until everyone was quiet before continuing in a firm, even tone.

“As this is clearly part of the message, and in light of the unusual level of experience of the Legionnaire in question, we have _decided_ that Jason Grace will indeed lead this quest. _However_ , we intend to include a centurion amongst his companions. It is well known that three is the blessed number for quests.” Mel shifted, catching both my and Violet’s attention. I couldn’t see her face, but I could guess what her expression would be - she hoped she’d be allowed to go with me. I liked the idea too. I trusted Mel - trusted her to know what she was doing, trusted her to listen to me when I knew what _I_ was doing. But Violet was giving the slightest shake of her head, and I saw Mel slump. I was disappointed, but not too surprised. They were giving me command; sending another of the Fifth as my key support would never have been accepted by the senate.

“In light of what little we know of the message, we have decided that the most appropriate centurion for this task is Octavian.” He dropped the stuffed animal he carried in surprise, apparently not noticing the hit to his dignity. “The messages are unclear; the augur may be able to glean further insights during the quest. As a descendant of the sun god Apollo, we feel there is also some link to being ‘son of the sky’; it doesn’t harm to hedge our bets.” Rich smiled briefly. There were still some muttered objections, but for the most part he’d already silenced them. Octavian was both centurion and augur; he was enough authority to make up for a Legionnaire like me being officially in charge. “The question of the third participant, and the nature of the task, are more debatable. Any who have ideas - speak.” Rich sat down. I swallowed nervously. _I_ had to be the first to talk, if I was going to hold any weight as being in charge of a quest. Otherwise I would just look unprepared and like I was relying on others to figure things out for me. Pablo gave me the tiniest of shoves, muttering encouragement to get me on my feet.

“I -” My voice squeaked and I coughed, hoping that I wasn’t blushing and knowing that I probably was. “I have a few…uh, things that might be kinda helpful. I think.” I cursed myself internally, wishing the ground would just open and swallow me whole. Rich had taken on a slightly waxy expression, aiming for emotionless and landing somewhere on ‘ _gee, kid, way to make an impression_ ’, but he nodded and told me to speak.

“So, um, we -” Mel shook her head a fraction, almost unnoticeable unless you were, like me, staring fixedly at the back of her head rather than risk catching anyone else’s eye. “- _I_ \- thought that the references to Bacchanalia seemed out of place. The festivals of Bacchus take place in _March_ , but the rest of the quest suggests that there’s a more urgent time limit than that.” There was more muttering, mostly along the lines of _well yes, you’re stating the obvious, we all know that_. “But - I kinda figure, maybe that means there’s something _else_ that could be taken as a festival for Bacchus sometime sooner? So I was wondering…does anyone know of any events that Bacchus usually chooses to attend? Or where I - we - might find someone who _does_? That would at least clue us in on how long we have.” Now that I had to stand up to say it in front of everyone, it just sounded childish and stupid. It was only thanks to years of Legion training that I didn’t fidget on the spot, or make a run for it to just get out of the spotlight. The murmuring began, but to my relief the assembled senate seemed to actually be talking about what I’d said, not mocking me and doubting whether I’m the right choice after all.

After almost an hour of throwing ideas around, we hit the same answer that the Fifth had reached - a complete blank. Bacchus would typically be present at _lots_ of events. Any event including revelry and wine, to be precise. Problem was, that meant we couldn’t narrow it down at _all_. If we had to solve whatever problem he was presenting us with by the next college house party we’d have a few hours. If it was, say, a New Year’s bash, then we had months. Life would be so much simpler if the gods set us tasks by clearly worded letter, or something, rather than convoluted riddles hidden in the stuffing of about a million teddy bears. Worse for the stuffed toy industry, though.

“So why don’t you try to find someone who _will_ know where Bacchus is going to be.” Heads turned. Reyna looked startled by the attention for a heartbeat, then drew herself up, lifting her chin in determination. I swallowed a sigh of envy. She looked so in _control_ , unfazed, while I was just praying my hands weren’t visibly shaking. “He doesn’t travel alone, does he?”

I was still digesting the senate’s decision, hours later, when I arrived on Temple hill, to make the appropriate offerings for the start of my first quest. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but I figured getting all the godly good will I could would probably be best. I started with my father’s temple, praying for his guidance, and promising not to let him down. It was only after I left the temple that I thought I’d maybe set myself up to fail. I could only promise that I would _try_ not to fail, not that I wouldn’t - but no judgmental lightning had struck, so either he understood or believed in me. Or just hadn’t noticed I was talking to him. He’s a busy god, after all. After that was a trip to the temple of Juno Montea, my father’s godly wife and my patron. According to Lupa, I was something of a peace offering to the Queen of Olympus - me as her champion in the Legion in exchange for _not_ killing all my mortal family. All that really meant was that I had to leave offerings to her in addition to my father - and that I’d had to be left with Lupa when I was three. I guess Juno wanted to start early with me, seeing as being the goddess of marriage she doesn’t have any kids of her own in the Legion.

That done, I went to the shrine of Fortuna, goddess of luck. We were going to need truckloads of _that._ A token on the shrine of Mercury, the god of travelers. I had some hope that that offering might carry weight. When Pablo, Mercury’s son, had joined the Legion, I’d offered to stand for him. Maybe seeing as I’d literally put my neck on the line for his kid, Mercury would be inclined to at least not throw obstacles in our path. My last two offerings were for the Temples of the relatives of my companions to be: Apollo, god of the sun, poetry and oracles, and Bellona, goddess of war and strategy. I was pretty tempted to pray to her that Reyna wouldn’t kill me in my sleep. The look she’d given me when the senate declared _she_ should be the third of our merry little band had been poisonous, as though it were somehow _my_ fault that they’d decided the prophecy could be referring to her when it mentioned _spears,_ those being a symbol of her godly mom. Added to that was the fact that in a quest involving Bacchus and his revelry, it didn’t hurt to have a girl as part of the band - just in case the Bacchinalia in question stuck to the very traditional women-only rule. Though I wasn’t so thrilled by the whole yielding under dark waves thing. It was the most complete fragment of the prophecy, and a prophecy _always_ comes true.

“All packed?” Mel lent against the end of the bunk bed, biting her lip the way she did when she was trying not to mother me too much. I nodded confidently. Someone spluttered a laugh, and when I looked in her direction, Gwen held up the provided squares of ambrosia in a zip-lock bag, which I’d left on the bedside table.

“Um. Oops.” I tucked it carefully into the front zip pocket of my bag. “ _Now_ I’m all packed.” Mel was still frowning in concern. “Aw, Mel…relax. Besides, I did _have_ ambrosia anyway. That’s just the extra ration the senate provided for the quest.” She knew she was fussing. She’d checked over all my gear before the senate meeting to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. The only things I’d really had to add after the long meeting were the new gear I’d been given - the extra ambrosia, letters to guarantee the help of any retired Legionnaires, and a small allowance in a mix of mortal dollars and Roman denarii. The few spare clothes I’d need were already folded and packed, the armour I’d wear hidden under a t-shirt and further disguised by the mist laid out and carefully checked over for any damage.

Absently, I shoved a hand in my pocket and rolled the gold coin I kept there in my fingers. Ivlivs was easily my most precious possession, and not just because it was an honest-to-Veritas present from my father. Ivlivs was only a coin for ease; with a flick of my thumb, it became either a sword or a spear - heads or tails. I’d practised the move over and over during the last year and a bit, ever since the weapon was delivered by a giant eagle in a dream (I _did_ say demigod dreams are a little strange), until I could catch whichever weapon as it fell without thinking or panicking about slicing my own fingers off. The Mist would shroud weapons. It didn’t make them smaller or easier to carry, or hide them from monsters. It just meant that mortals didn’t notice. Ivlivs was easy to carry, and gave me an element of stealth that I needed. Being a short twelve year old puts you at a disadvantage in a lot of fights. Being able to summon a weapon at short notice, without my enemies realising I was even carrying one, was the kind of edge that just might help me stay alive.

With that cheerful thought, I propped the bag against the foot of the bed, gave my waiting armour and clothes a last glance over, and declared that it was time for me to turn in for the night. The idea was that I got a nice, long night’s sleep, making sure that I was refreshed and ready for any challenges that might come my way on the quest. Of course, the Oneiroi had a different idea.

The girl with blue eyes was pacing up and down a beach. She looked healthier, or maybe it was just that she wasn’t wearing clothes that were torn and bloodied - or at least, not ones torn by monster claws. Her jeans were ripped, but some of the tears had the look of deliberate distress. Other rips looked like they came from scrambling over rocks, or heavy wear. I drifted, invisible, a few metres above her. I tried to call out, to ask what was wrong, who she was, but either she couldn’t hear me, or my voice was lost in the roar of the waves. She was muttering to herself, and I willed myself closer.

“Hello? Can you hear me yet? Who are you! Where is this place?” Even though I was only a few feet away now, she didn’t show any sign of hearing me, and I decided that meant she simply _couldn’t_ see or hear me. There was a tenseness in her shoulders, a wariness in her stance, that practically _screamed_ ‘experienced demigod’, except she didn’t look like any Legionnaire I’d ever known. Unless she was an immortal, that made no sense. If she’d had any training, she _had_ to have received it while I was at the Legion. She was too young to have done her ten years of service and resigned before I arrived. The wind dropped, and I could finally hear what she was saying - whispering - to herself. Just a few words.

“- years!” She stopped and glared out and up at the sky over the sea, shouting now, no longer whispering. “What did you think you were doing? _Helping_ me? Saving me? Nothing’s better now, I’ve just lost years and - and _people_. Annabeth has _changed_ , she’s grown and I wasn’t there, she’s a stranger. And Luke - Luke’s gone, I lost him too, and I wasn’t even here to try to stop him.” She was crying now, the bitter, repressed sobs of someone who doesn’t think they can afford to cry but can’t stop themselves. I reached for her instinctively, but she didn’t react to my hand on her shoulder any more than she’d heard me call to her. “You - why was I _suddenly_ so important, why interfere now, why - every time you get involved, you take things away. And _I_ have to deal with it, again, just like last time at the Wolf house.” I froze. The Wolf house was our most sacred site, the home of Lupa - when she felt like it - and the place where most demigods took their first real steps on the path to Rome. The girl had worked herself into a fury now, and lightning arched from the sky to slam into the ground first to her left, then her right, and finally into the sea before her. I was dragged and thrown in all directions, losing sight of both the beach and the furious figure.

For a moment I thought I was in the wind again, not just flying but part of it, a breeze myself. Then I realised I wasn’t seeing the base of clouds above my head. It was water, the surface of a choppy sea, seen from below. Something moved below me, something huge and cold, and my heart stopped for a moment. I struggled to see what it was, but there was no light except what little moonlight filtered through the surface. Whatever it was shifted again, and I was dragged further down, until there was no light at all. It was cold - the water around me, and something else. I shuddered. Whatever it was, it made me feel weak - not just _not strong_ , but that washed out, never going to be able to do anything ever again, my bones have turned to over cooked spaghetti weakness. Or maybe I wasn’t any different. Maybe the cold thing was just so powerful that everything else felt puny in its presence.

_Good, she rages and fumes, just as was predicted. Brother will be pleased._


	6. V. Breakfast in a basket

Cold sweat coated my skin when I woke, quiet and still, feeling queasy and scared to move in case I still felt that crushing weakness in every limb. The voice echoed around my head. I’d heard it before, in dreams, but over a year before. Hearing it again now, the eve of my first quest, felt like the worst kind of omen. Last time that voice had been in my dreams, Lupa had almost been murdered - _would_ have been murdered if by chance I hadn’t inhaled enough monster stink to break me out of a trance and return to Camp Jupiter just in time to save her. I shuddered and pushed the thought away. I’d have to hope things didn’t get that kind of bad, ever again - and definitely not on this quest.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get properly back to sleep. Instead, I just turned the dream over and over in my head, dozing off for short snatches and jerking back awake to puzzle over it. For all that I had no idea who she was, the girl didn’t worry me. I felt that she was a friend - or at least, a neutral stranger, though I shied away from that option. I wasn’t sure I liked the thought of the same random person popping up in my dreams for no reason. What worried me was that cold presence - what terrified me was that it had seemed pleased. _Happy_. And I really didn’t like to think about the fact that it apparently had a brother, who would probably be just as awful, but it was one of those sticky thoughts that I couldn’t get shot of.

By the time morning came around, I had a headache and felt like my eyes were full of sand. Pablo took one look at me when I dropped down from my bunk at the morning bell, and jogged over to the girl’s barracks to fetch Mel and Bobby. I didn’t like being babied, but after Bobby had worked a minor healing on me and Mel had dabbed one of her magic oils on the back of her hand for me to inhale, I felt less like I’d just escaped from _Dis_ and more like a human being. There wasn’t much time to talk. The rest of the cohort had to go on the usual morning run, while the three of us headed off on the quest would be escorted to the exit by one of the praetors and sent on our way. Just as I was about to leave, determined to be first to arrive at the praetor’s office and get off to a good start, it occurred to me that maybe my dreams weren’t just snatches of someone else’s life. Maybe the girl with blue eyes was someone I was supposed to find, to help - she’d been trained, sure, but she was also on her own, and angry. Not a good combination in a demigod. I couldn’t search for her while on the quest, but I _could_ ask Mel to keep an eye out - just in case the mystery half-blood turned up at Camp while I was gone.

Mel listened in silence while I gabbled out my latest dream, and promised that if the girl did join the Legion she’d take her under her wing, and see what she could work out.

“Just - Jace, keep focused, ‘kay? A quest isn’t the time to have your head in the clouds.” I nodded and rolled my eyes. I knew this was important. The runners started off, and Mel tugged me into an abrupt hug, ruffled my hair once, and dashed out the door to catch up. For a moment I looked at the empty barracks, feeling forlorn. Then I remembered that _I_ had somewhere to be, cursed, and quick-walked to the praetor’s office. So much for my plan of being first to arrive.

My quest companions were both there already, waiting patiently outside. Octavian looked even paler than usual, which is saying something, and if I had to guess I’d say that he’d gotten about as much sleep as I had. He fidgeted a little on the spot, muttering to himself. Once I was in earshot, I realised it was an inventory. Reyna was staring into the distance, a slight crease between her dark eyebrows the only sign that she was maybe a little nervous. She’d only been at the Legion for a few weeks - she probably didn’t realise how big a deal a quest _was_. Not that I’d easily be able to tell if she’d had a bad night. Octavian had that kind of washed out pale skin that showed purplish shadows under his eyes after just one night of losing sleep. Mine wasn’t quite as pale, but I could still guess that it was pretty obvious I wasn’t the best rested. Reyna was more akin to Mel in colouring; she’d have to have several bad nights before you could really see it.

Vi opened the office door just after I arrived, when I was standing awkwardly next to my quest mates and wondering what, if anything, to say. She nodded at us all in greeting as she locked up.

“You have everything?” We all murmured that we did, resettling packs and checking pockets were zipped. Vi checked us all over, brisk and efficient, rattling off a checklist of the key things we needed with us before being certain we were as ready to go as we were ever going to be. Octavian had a wicker hamper as well as his pack, and I caught Vi and Reyna sneaking confused glances at it as well as we set off along the _Via Principalis_ towards the bridges over the Little Tiber. He reddened when he noticed.

“My mom sent food for breakfast on the train.” He was practically _daring_ us to comment, but all I felt was a spike of jealousy. I wondered whether _my_ mom would have sent me a hamper of food the morning of a quest, and pushed the thought away. Whoever she was, she didn’t live in New Rome. She probably wouldn’t even have known I was _going_ on a quest. Reyna either didn’t listen or didn’t care. Vi was silent too, but I was pretty certain I saw her smile a little to herself.

Before we were allowed to leave we had to go through the customary checks with Terminus before being permitted to leave the grounds of greater New Rome. He barked at Octavian to get a haircut, and I noticed Reyna glance between Octavian's slightly overgrown regulation cut, then Vi's ponytail, tugging the end of her own braid. Vi caught her eye and shrugged.

"When they wrote the regulations, they phrased it as any _man_ in the Legion will keep the regulation haircut. They didn't bother writing anything about what women - or anyone who's neither - should do." It was one of the well known quirks of the Legion, because Terminus was a stickler for rules but he wouldn't try and apply them outside of the letter of the law. I'd heard Vi telling Mel once that she sometimes considered cutting her hair regulation style, or at least shorter, anyway for convenience, but that she liked it long and that it worked as a visible reminder to anyone who'd forget that she was a trans girl.

Inspection and interrogation over, we stepped through the bounds and made our way to the New Rome car-park. There were no real roads of the vehicle variety into the city itself, but we had a parking lot with a filter lane onto the highway not too far away. The camp minibus was a battered old thing, but it was comfy and a lot more fun than the public coach would be this early in the morning, when we were aiming to catch an early train. There was pretty much no traffic at this time of day, and it felt like I’d barely settled into my seat when we were pulling up to the train station. Vi didn’t wait with us; we were on a formal quest, and shouldn’t need babysitting. She wished us luck one final time, threatened to come down to Dis just to scold us if we got ourselves killed, and drove off. I watched the van turn a corner and disappear from sight, feeling a little forlorn, then took a deep breath. We were on our own now.

Settled on the train, I spread the map the senate had provided out on the table, weighing it down with water bottles on two corners and a dagger on the third. I’d traced our planned route on it in faint red pen. Train to the airfield, where we’d get a lift from a retired Legionnaire all the way to Oklahoma, hopefully all the way to our destination. That was assuming that everything went to plan, of course.

The serious silence of the compartment was broken as my stomach gave a loud growl, and Reyna laughed, startled. I’d never heard her laugh before. The Fifth didn’t have much to do with the Second cohort at training, and she was in the year above me at school. She cut it off as though shocked she’d shown the slightest hint of being human, and I swallowed a sigh. This was going to be a long trip if everyone was too busy trying to be dignified to laugh when the chance arose.

Octavian tapped the map sharply.

“Shift this for now. We’re on the train, we can’t exactly change the route, and we won’t get another one of those maps.” I was about to snap out a retort – just because he was older and a centurion didn’t mean he got to be _rude_. Well. It _shouldn’t_. – but he was lifting the hamper onto the table and waiting for me to move it, and my stomach begged me not to risk being refused food. Besides, if Octavian was to be believed, his mom was a _great_ cook. Plus he was right about the map. Sure, it was only a map of the USA. But it was a Legion-modified one, which meant that Legionnaire airfields, help points, and meeting stations were also marked on, though you had to have Legion training to know the codes and symbols used.

Once the map was safely tucked away again, Octavian began lifting out bundles from his basket. My mouth watered, and the cereal bars and dried fruit packed neatly in my bag sounded even less appealing than they had when I first received my rations.

“Here.” He shoved one bundle at Reyna and the other at me. “She packed for you two as well.” Mrs. Brown had outdone herself. She’d packed us each one of those lunch-box Tupperware, the ones that had little sections for different things, and a teaspoon to eat with - granola, a yogurt pot, berries, even a little stack of fluffy pancakes wrapped in tinfoil and still warm from the oven. There was also a hard-boiled egg wedged into the last of the three compartments. Reyna quirked an eyebrow at it, and Octavian flushed red.

“Good source of protein.” He mumbled by way of explanation, and tucked in. I cracked the shell of my egg against the table and started peeling it.

“Your mom is cool.” After a moment, Reyna nodded in agreement and picked up her spoon.

“We should make sure to thank her when we get back.”


	7. VI. I make an unfortunate discovery

The air field wasn’t quite what I expected. For a start, it was much larger. It turned out that this particular Legionnaire - a daughter of Somnus - didn’t just keep a small plane on a local airstrip. Oh no. She kept _several_ planes at something that felt a lot more like an airport. Complete with _check in_ , which was a slight issue as two of us didn’t have passports. After that whole mess was sorted out, we were escorted to the plane and told to buckle in.

This is going to sound daft, but I started to feel queasy at the thought of flying in a metal box. I know, I know, I’m the son of _Jupiter_. The sky is totally my space. But it was a metal tube with some wings, and all I could think of was how crumpled up paper aeroplanes looked after nosediving into the floor, walls, or occasionally ceiling in the hallway at school. I imagined us crashing into the ground, the nose of the plane crumpling just like paper - squishing _us_ to a pulp. The engines started, and I swear to Veritas that the only reason I didn’t shout _Stop! We changed our minds! We’ll walk the whole way, thank you all the same!_ was that if I opened my mouth I was gonna puke, and I was pretty certain if I threw up on her, Reyna really would kill me. I clenched my hands until my nails bit into my palms as we trundled along the runway, picking up speed. As the plane finally lifted into the sky, worryingly close to the fence at the end of the tarmac to my mind, pressure built in my nose and pressed me back in my seat. For a panicked moment I felt I was back in my dream, floating in the depths of the sea, but it passed. _It’ll be better once we level out. It’ll be fine once we’re flying, not - not - not just leaving the ground_.

It wasn’t.

Even once the pressure had faded and I _knew_ we were flying along quite happily, I remained anything but happy. I wished I hadn’t eaten all of my breakfast, or even any of it. It wasn’t only the knowledge that we were stuck in a metal tube. It wasn’t even the idea that we could crash into the ground at speed if the engines failed. After a while, I figured out that it was mostly because I couldn’t feel the air around me properly. When I flew, it was like walking on solid air, or propelling myself with gusts of wind. I was part of the sky. In a plane? I wasn’t part of the air. The wind currents didn’t tug at me, didn’t ruffle through my hair and whistle in my ears. So far as I was concerned, being a son of Jupiter didn’t matter at all. I was just another human in a plane, and I couldn’t get footage of awful accidents I’d seen on the mortal news out of my head.

Lost in my gloomy thoughts, I didn’t notice at first that my queasiness was no longer just from airsickness. The plane was juddering about, buffeted by the wind from all sides. Octavian was looking green, and even Reyna was clutching the hilt of her sword as though it might be some use.

“We’re experiencing some - ah! - severe turbulence. Whoa!” The plane listed, then righted itself. “Have to say folks, this doesn’t feel like normal weather to me. It blew up pretty fast, and it’s…well, it’s not normal, alright?” Gritting my teeth so hard they squeaked, I forced myself to peer out of the window, looking for any airborne monsters who might have decided that canned demigod was on the menu. I couldn’t see anything. Octavian, looking out the window on the other side, called out that he couldn’t see anything either.

“Nothin’ - nothing over here.” My voice shook, no matter how much I tried to keep it steady. Shaking, weak voice - what a wonderful leader I was turning out to be. Reyna struggled out of her seat belt, and I gaped at her. If ever there was a time to buckle in, surely it was _now?_ Thunder boomed and lighting zipped worryingly close to the plane, accompanied by another powerful surge of wind. The plane dropped by a matter of feet, and I actually went dizzy from fright. Reyna twisted in her seat to peer at me more closely, scowling.

“You’re sweating buckets, Grace.” The plane lurched again, and she reached down to her sword again. I looked back out of the window, at which point Reyna clobbered me in the temple with the hilt of her sword, and I was out for the count.

Drifting back into consciousness, I had a moment of brief calm, then confusion hit me. I sat up sharply, trying to understand how I was lying on the ground, covered with a bright purple blanket with the S.P.Q.R. insignia embroidered on it in gold. My head throbbed and a wave of dizziness washed over me again.

“Of all the stupid, ridiculous - what were you even _doing?_ ” I blinked hazily up at Reyna. Octavian and Edith weren’t in sight, but I relaxed a little anyway. If Reyna was still there and shouting at me, then it was unlikely we’d crashed and the others were gone, and it also suggested they hadn’t just left me somewhere to wait for them to return after they decided I was too useless to keep around for the whole quest. Then what she was actually saying sank in.

“What d’you _mean_ , what was _I_ doing?” I rested my head on my knees, fighting off another wave of dizziness.

“You were _messing with the wind_ you absolute _incompetent twit_! You almost brought the entire plane down. What were you doing? Trying to make us go faster, or something? Or just messing around for fun?” She was really furious, and it was honestly pretty scary. I’d seen her in training enough to know that even if she didn’t have much experience, she was perfectly prepared to go for the throat - and picked things up quickly.

“I - I wasn’t doing - I didn’t -”

“Oh, _great_. It was _unintentional_. You just almost _killed_ us all because you can’t control _when_ you control the sky. And stop with that _oh I’m so innocent and confused look!_ ” I blinked again, opening my mouth to apologise, but she threw her hands up in fury and stalked away, muttering angrily to herself.

I was still sitting around like a fool when Octavian and the pilot arrived, carrying our packs. Edith knelt and started building a fire, while Octavian stalked over to me. For a moment I thought he was going to shout at me as Reyna had, but instead he heaved a long suffering sigh and held out a canteen.

“Drink. You probably have concussion. If your head isn’t fine in half an hour, we’ll give you some nectar. Just a few drops.” I nodded cautiously. Nectar - the liquid equivalent of ambrosia - possessed the same healing capabilities. It wouldn’t take much at all to fix up a minor concussion, so we’d have to be careful if it did come to that - too much, and I’d go up in literal flames. Just as we almost had done.

“- the plane! What happ-”

“We _landed_ just fine, no thanks to you!” Octavian actually jumped, and Reyna instantly looked deeply embarrassed at her outburst.

“I didn’t…”

“Ever been in a plane before?” Edith had been listening in, of course, and my face burned. _Great._ Not only had I managed to screw things up, I’d also screwed up in front of an experienced Legionnaire, _and_ proceeded to have to row about it with my supposed close companions. Some quest leader I was turning out to be. I shook my head mutely, not trusting my voice not to wobble like a baby’s. She sighed.

“Ironic.” After a long pause, she looked up from the fire, and rolled her eyes at my puzzled expression. “You’re scared of flying.”

“I am _not_!”

“You almost threw up, looked like a ghost, _and_ messed with the winds until we almost went down.” Octavian muttered the reminder rather than speaking full volume, for which I was thankful, even if I didn’t appreciate his tone.

“I am not scared of flying.” I insisted, resting my head on my knees. “I just - I’m _fine_ when _I_ fly.” Edith sighed again, and started unpacking supplies.

“Fine then. You’re scared of _planes_. We’ll eat and rest here for a bit, until we know if you’re going to need nectar. Then we’ll take off again - thank the gods for out-of-the way runways, that’s all I’m saying. And when we lift off again, _you_ are going to be sedated. I’ll send you off into a nice sleep - well, a dream, but you’ll be absent in mind - and we won’t wake you until we reach our destination.” Miserable, I nodded and mumbled my thanks, wishing bitterly that I had nice, friendly people with me - Mel, Pablo, Anya, anyone who’s weaknesses and fears I knew as well as mine. Anyone I knew wouldn’t mark me down in some kind of failure category - and more importantly, anyone I could guarantee _wouldn’t_ spread this viciously around the entire Legion and make me laughing stock.

I buckled into the plane for the second time that day, fidgeting a little with a new batch of nerves. Edith reached out towards my forehead, frowning in concentration.

“This - this will work, right? I won’t just mess with the winds in my sleep?”

“No idea. You’re the first son of Jupiter in living memory, so we just have to try and hope.” I winced. It wasn’t exactly the warm comfort I’d been hoping for, but that was Legion training - cold, hard, brutal truth and facts, with no mollycoddling allowed. Neither Octavian or Reyna looked particularly reassured. Slipping into a induced dream wasn’t really like falling asleep - it was more like fainting, everything going greyish around the edges. I could hear the others moving around, settling into place, but it was all watery and distant.


	8. VII. Crash and burn

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that rather than some disjointed jumble of bizarre things, my dream zoned straight in on The Girl. Floating alongside her like a puff of wind, I followed her along a street. She didn’t seem angry this time, or about to burst into tears. Just…melancholy, maybe a little nervous, plodding along with her hands shoved in her pockets. The bright orange t-shirt was gone; now she wore a black top with the name of some band in blocky letters, one of those groups where they all had haircuts that would throw Terminus into an absolute fit. She came to a halt in front of the back of an apartment block, and stared up at it, lost in thought.

“Hey, kid - whadda ya want?” The girl and I both jumped. She turned to face the guy who’d shouted, leaning out of his ground floor window, hand straying to where I could see a dagger strapped to her arm - the mortals probably just saw a wrist brace, or an arm warmer, or something. She shrugged.

“Just looking.” After a second of hesitation, she continued. “I used to live here, when I was a little kid. I was -” She cut herself off, looking angry at whatever she’d been about to say.

“Yeah? How long ago?” He was a little more relaxed, but still wary.

“A few years. I was…wondering whether someone I knew still lived here, that’s all.”

“Well, I know everyone in the block. Got a name?” For a moment she debated. I could practically see the cogs turn in her head. I got the feeling she only half wanted to find her mysterious person, and maybe wasn’t ready to have to decide. Her shoulders squared and she took a deep breath, bracing herself.

“Grace. Beryl Grace.” Roaring filled my ears. _Grace_? The guy pulled a face.

“Sorry kid. She died a few years back.” The girl stared for a moment, expressionless.

“How?” She didn’t sound upset, or surprised, just…hollow. Like whatever scenarios she’d thought through, this hadn’t been on the list.

“Car crash. Drunk driving, as usual.” His face twisted. “Sorry. Forgot you knew her.” He ducked back inside, answering some unheard summons and probably glad to get out of the conversation. I was still reeling from hearing my name in this unfamiliar place. The girl stood like a statue for a second, then started to stride back the way she’d come. Halfway along the path, she kicked a empty wine bottle away savagely as she passed where it had been dumped. It crashed into the wall and shattered into broken shards, the last few drops spilling across the tarmac like wet blood.

I snapped out of the dream, and lightning hit the wing of the plane. Oddly, I wasn’t scared as we plummeted. Now that the worst was happening, my nerves had faded. I gritted my teeth and reached for the sky outside. It was still cut off, still too distant for me. Reyna was out cold this time - so was Octavian, and I realised after a moment that Edith presumably was. There wasn’t time to puzzle out why - we were falling too fast, from too high, and we were going to crash headlong into the ground if I didn’t do _something_. Otherwise I was going to end up floating in Dis alongside an angry Edith, Octavian and Reyna for as long as it took to get through the underworld and be reborn, if I wasn’t sent to the fields of the Damned for getting everyone killed. Pluto would probably make me spend the whole time in a plane or something as punishment.

Breathing deep, I reached out again. I’d never had to try so hard to find the wind before. Sure, I’d struggled to control it plenty of times, but this was the first time I just hadn’t been able to _reach_ it.

“I am _not_ \- I _refuse_ \- to spend who knows how long being scolded for getting this plane crashed by the shades of _Reyna and Octavian._ ” Something tugged at my gut, sharply, and I clung to the feeling. There was air all around me. I was not going to die in a plane crash, wreathed in irony. I absolutely refused.

“Just - _DO AS I SAY OR ELSE!_ ” I was immediately thankful that none of the others were awake to hear me shouting at the wind like a spoilt toddler, but the burst of furious concentration did the trick. The plane slowed its fall, but it was still going down. Out the window I could see the ground coming towards us, and tugged the air as best I could to cushion us. I wasn’t going to stop our fall, I knew, but if I could slow us enough that we landed rather than crashed at least we’d be _alive_.

Even though I had zero experience of plane landings, I knew it wasn’t exactly a smooth touchdown. We bumped and skidded, but when I finally opened my eyes, we at least weren’t crushed or in the middle of a fire. With a sigh of relief I slumped forwards to rest my head on the back of Reyna’s seat, and abruptly remembered that there were three unconscious people in the plane. I fumbled with my seatbelt, and forced a drop of nectar from Octavian’s vial into each of their mouths, praying to Vejovis that they’d be alright. I didn’t know what had knocked them out, and I absently shoved a hand in my pocket to roll Iluvis in my fingers, just for reassurance. If this was the work of some monster, I’d be ready for it.

As Edith began to stir, I fumbled with the controls until the door creaked open, and jumped out. Wary, I scanned our crash site, but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Well, apart from the plane, that is. It was a wreck; the lightning that had struck one wing had clearly done a number on it. The aircraft wouldn’t be airborne any time soon, which meant that we were stranded. I cursed, wondering just how we were going to get to our destination, let alone back. The others scrambled out of the plane after a moment, looking about as shell-shocked as I felt.

Edith was absolutely beside herself with a mix of anger, shock, and concern. I suppose coming round to find that your plane - apple of your eye and all that - had actually crashed would do that to a person, but I didn’t really appreciate being shouted at _again_.

“It’s not _my_ fault that there was a _storm_ \- it wasn’t the wind this time!” Edith folded her arms and glared down at me.

“Oh yeah? Well, there was no storm until _just before_ I blacked out with the pressure change - which somehow _you_ didn’t.” She surveyed the plane, scowling. “Besides, normal lighting? I think the three of us would’ve got something worse that a short nap, even if you’d be fine and dandy.”

“So maybe I somehow _stopped_ you all getting roasted!” A seed of doubt pinched my stomach, even while I protested my innocence. Could I be certain that I _hadn’t_ had something to do with this? Maybe just by being in the sky I’d drawn lightning to us. Stubbornly, I squared my shoulders. Even if I had, it wasn’t my _fault_. I hadn’t done anything, and it wasn’t like I could’ve _guessed_ it would be a possibility. “I _definitely_ stopped us all going up in flames, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Edith opened her mouth to shout back, and Octavian stepped between us.

“We don’t have time for this.” His voice was even, and if you didn’t know him to realise it was about half an octave higher than usual you wouldn’t guess he was freaked out. “We need to get to Mount Nysa, find Silenus, and figure out the rest of this quest, before it’s too late.”

I deflated, and as anger faded, sullen shame took it’s place. _I_ was in charge of this quest. I should’ve been the one to get things on track, rather than arguing over something we couldn’t fix. Octavian either didn’t notice my embarrassed blush or didn’t care.

“Edith, can you try to fix this while we do…whatever we need to do?” She huffed and rolled her eyes.

“ _Not likely.”_ She heaved a sigh. “I’ll do what I can, though. May have to radio for help. Doubt I have the gear to fix this.” Octavian just nodded, and looked at Reyna, then me.

“Shall we be off, then?” He nodded over our shoulders, looking at something past us. “It doesn’t seem to be too far away, thank Fortuna.”


	9. VIII. Singing in the Rain

The walk the rest of the way was uncomfortable, and I was in no mood to make an effort. My dream was nagging at my thoughts, distracting me until I had to drag my concentration back to where I was going to avoid tripping on the rough ground. It didn’t help that Octavian and Reyna, both taller than me, were striding ahead, apparently quite glad to not have to talk to me for a bit. I trailed along like a kicked puppy, left to switching between bitter thoughts and obsessing over the possibility of finding my mortal family.

By some miracle - which it occurred to me I should probably make some offerings to the most likely godly candidates about - I’d managed to guide the plane down into the scrub pretty much at the base of our destination. That made it pretty awkward that when I’d been looking around for potential danger, I’d managed to just not register the massive _hill_ stuck in the middle of the plains. I mean, there’s a reason it’s a major navigation landmark. It was less than half an hour before we were starting up the foothills. Even with all my Legion training, it wasn’t long before my legs were burning and my breath was coming in shamefully heavy gasps. The temptation to just fly, or even super-hop along, was almost too much, but I resisted. Me and my wind control had done enough damage for one day, and I doubted using it again would go down well with Octavian, let alone Reyna.

As if the uneven ground, slope, and rough grass weren’t enough, the Rainy Mountain soon lived up to its name. Within minutes of the rain starting, we were all soaked through. It was that kind of persistent, foggy drizzle that seeps through everything and feels almost like a ghostly presence. Maybe it was. When the centre of power for the Roman gods shifted to America, Mount Olympus positioned itself over the Empire State building. Mount Nysa, part of the kingdom of Silenus and home to the Hyades? Well, they’d settled into the vicinity of the Rainy Mountain. Maybe they just heard the name and decided it sounded interesting, what with being rain nymphs, because the original kingdom of Nysa was supposed to have been somewhere in the middle east - so far as we knew, anyway. It was one of those bits of Roman mytho-geography that was kinda “That place far far away. Probably far further away than you’ve ever been”, and the gods weren’t about to bother filling us in on the details after this long.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I walked straight into Reyna, sending us both stumbling and tripping to land on the increasingly muddy ground. She glared daggers as she scrambled back to her feet, while I mumbled yet more apologies. Octavian hushed us both sharply as she started to hiss rebukes at me and question why I was incapable of keeping it together for five minutes. They both had weapons out already, and I slipped Ivlivs out of my pocket and held it ready in my palm. We shifted automatically until we were in a triangle formation. The mist had risen while we walked, and it was hard to see more than a few metres in any direction.

Now that I’d stopped and started paying attention, I realised what had them so on edge. There was an otherworldliness to our surroundings that wasn’t completely due to the rain itself. There was a presence - several presences - drifting around us. Rain lashed, harder, managing to drive from all angles into all of our eyes against all rhyme and reason. A vicious gust of wind snapped a branch, making all three of us jump - and then the ground was sliding away from under my feet.

It took a frantic moment to realise that I was sliding too; the waterlogged soil I was standing on had started a miniature mudslide. Reyna and Octavian shouted in alarm, suggesting they were having the same problem. Throwing caution literally into the wind, I bent my knees a fraction and jumped, catching myself with currents of air to hover. I was no longer sliding down the side of a mountain, but the mist was still thickening, and I couldn’t see a thing - let alone my companions.

“Octavian! Reyna! Where are you?” I strained my ears, ignoring the whistle of the wind.

“Jason?”

“Yeah! It’s me! Keep shouting.” I tried to drift in the direction of Reyna’s voice, but it was difficult to pinpoint, and I honestly couldn’t tell if I was going closer or moving away. One moment she’d sound close, then miles away, then close again.

“I’m sinnngging in the rain, what a beauuuttiiifffullll feeeelllllllling…” I almost dropped out of the sky in surprise. Reyna’s shouts stopped too, so either she was stunned into silence as well or I’d managed to move completely out of earshot. “I’m…HAPPY AGAIN!…”

I had to admit, the whole augur thing wasn’t the the only bit of Apollo’s godly nature Octavian had apparently inherited. He had a pretty solid singing voice, though you wouldn’t have guessed it from his usual slightly squeaky speech. The mist began to recede, and I finally spotted the purple blob that was Reyna’s Legion t-shirt, and dived down to help her out of the mud. It was easy to find Octavian, both because the mist was thinning as quickly as it had sprung up, and because he kept singing. Once he reached the end of Singing in the Rain he began on Little April shower. Touching down softly behind him, Reyna clinging monkey like to my back rather than try to scramble up the hill through the mud, I figured I may as well let him get to the end of the song before tapping him on the shoulder. He spun to glare at us, spluttering.

“Well you could have just _said_ you were there already -” Reyna swung her sword up into a guard position, and Octavian whipped back around. The mist was consolidating into vaguely human forms - weeping girls, to be precise. One of them stepped forwards, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Oh, it _is_ so lovely to be _appreciated_ once in a while. Hello dears. Would you like a cup of tea and some cookies?” We exchanged wary glances. I cleared my throat, taking the initiative in the name of food.

“Um, only if you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

Tea with the Hyades was an odd affair. None of them seemed to be able to stop crying, for a start, which was a little unnerving. A few times I thought I’d maybe brought up some awful memory, only to remember that weeping was apparently their default state. The nymphs led us to a clearing, and bustled about for a few minutes. When they were done, what had at first glance looked like regular boulders and tree stumps had been rearranged and were quite obviously tables and chairs. One nymph drifted about waving her hands as though she was throwing something over each table, and a fine mist grew up, settling like a tablecloth. Crockery was produced from somewhere, and the Hyade who had spoken to us first set about making tea - by making it rain _boiling water_ into the cups. She looked up and caught us staring, and laughed, brushing tears away impatiently.

“Oh, yes. I hear from Mercury - always travelling, that one - that you’re really _supposed_ to use a teapot, but frankly that gets a little too big to control.” She gave me a nod and smile, as though this were something that should have a great meaning for me. I smiled back uncertainly, puzzled. “There, that’ll do. Shoo!” She flicked her fingers dismissively, and the mini rainclouds flickered into mist and died. I felt almost sorry for them, and gave myself a shake to get back on track. They were _clouds_ , not people. One of the other nymphs passed around the cups while the tea-maker produced a plate of crumpets, oozing butter and honey, apparently from thin air. I gaped. _I_ wanted to be able to do that!

The nymphs all settled down into seats and started gossipping away. The three of us sank nervously down onto stools across from the nymph who appeared to be designated chef. She gave us all a wide smile.

“Oh, it is so nice to have visitors!” It occurred to me that she sounded _old_ , and I choked on a laugh. She was a child of _Atlas_ , older than some of the gods. She _was_ old. It was just that she really didn’t look it. That wasn’t unusual - immortals tended to look young, in their prime, unless looking elderly was going to get them somewhere they needed to be. I mean, if you could control your physical form, why _wouldn’t_ you go with the option likely to make things easiest for you? Shifting closer to the table to reach my teacup, I was startled when my knees went through the tablecloth. I suppose it made sense, if it was only made of mist, but I couldn’t see what was making it hold its shape. I shivered a little. Magic. But the teacup was thankfully solid, and so were the crumpets, so I decided not to worry about it too much.

“We were looking - “ The kindly spirit frowned a little and sighed.

“You young people…don’t they teach you manners at school these days! Why, our little Bacchus learnt them before he could do more than toddle!” She shook her head reprovingly, and Octavian shrank a little where he sat, flushing sullenly. I hid a grin. At Camp Jupiter, he was one of the most formal Legionnaires - it was unusual for him to be the one criticised for lack of politeness. “Now then, introductions. What’s your name, dear?”

Reyna eyed her suspiciously. Before the pause could get awkward, I kicked her gently under the table. She shot me a glare, then cleared her throat.

“Reyna…ma’am.” The nymph beamed and nodded.

“Octavian Brown”

“Jason Grace.”

“Lovely to meet you all! I’m Ambrosia.”

“Like the food?” The words just popped out of my mouth I was so surprised. Luckily, she just laughed.

“ _Exactly_ like. That was my signature dish, if you will.” Her eyes took on that old-person misty expression, the one that heralded a long recital of stories from the good old days. “Went down a _treat_ the first time I took some to Olympus. They hardly eat anything else now, or so I hear. How do you all like the taste?” She was still smiling in a kindly fashion, but her eyes seemed a little sharper again. The others seemed to feel it too, because even though it was an innocent enough question we all hesitated.

“My centurion told me that it tastes different to everyone, but it’s always your favourite thing.” Reyna was the first to find her voice, sitting primly tall, avoiding touching the table cloth at all. Ambrosia tilted her head.

“Quite so. But do you _like_ the taste?” Reyna squirmed, and I took pity on her. Besides, this was a question I could honestly answer.

“Warm chocolate brownies? _Best thing ever_.” Ambrosia’s eyes turned to me expectantly. I got the feeling she didn’t really like my answer, but seeing as it was the truth, I didn’t know what else to say. Octavian murmured his own agreement. I wondered what he actually tasted when he ate ambrosia - or Reyna, for that matter. It just wasn’t something it would occur to me to ask. It felt somehow private, even if it was just flavour of medicine. I took another bite my crumpet. It was delicious, which if it had been baked by the person who came up with _ambrosia_ wasn’t that much of a surprise. Reyna kicked me under the table, not bothering to be gentle. I gave her a _‘What!?’_ look, and she jerked her head at Ambrosia, who was happily telling Octavian some story about Bacchus as a little toddler getting into mischief.

Oh, yeah. We were on a quest. Look, it had been a long day, so it was totally understandable that I’d been distracted by tea and crumpets. I cleared my throat, and Ambrosia stopped her story and turned to me, concerned. Before she could offer me a cough drop or something, I put my empty teacup down and gave her my politest smile.

“Thank you so much for the tea. I was wondering…we were looking for Silenus. I was wondering if he was anywhere around here? I know Mount Nysa is his home -” It was the wrong thing to say, because the Hyades at the next table started weeping in earnest. Ambrosia sighed and hushed them. She gave us all an apologetic smile.

“I’m afraid that he isn’t. We haven’t seen him in, oh, _years_. Bacchus too, the naughty child. I think he forgets that while he managed to get us our youth back from that lovely Medea girl, we still feel a little old and would appreciate a visit now and again, rather than having to search him out ourselves. Why are three so young as you looking for Silenus? He is a dear, but I’m not sure he’s the most appropriate company for children.” Octavian, the eldest, bristled at being called a _child_ , and from the way he flinched, Reyna had kicked him to keep him quiet at the same time as me. 

“We, um, we need to ask his advice. We have a quest from Bacchus, but it’s not very clear.” She set her cup down with a clink.

“I’m terribly sorry, dears, but I have no idea where he is. I can tell you he spends most of his time at his favourite winery, but none of us are good with directions. Rain clouds don’t care for mortal geography, you see. They just sort of _go_ where they want - and so do we. More tea, Jason?”

She took my stunned silence as an agreement. Our one lead was apparently a dead end, and I doubted even another crumpet was going to make me feel better. I took one anyway, just in case I was wrong about that. Taking my cup back from Ambrosia, I watched the little cloud raining into it while I wracked my brains for something - _anything_ \- we might have missed, any clue to what we needed to get done. A spark of lightning flickered in the baby cloud, which had gone from light grey to the charcoal grey of a thundercloud. Octavian was staring with a mix of fascination and horror, and Ambrosia leaned forwards to peer over in interest. The rumble of thunder echoed off the porcelain, and Reyna jumped in surprise, dropping her own cup. It shattered on the stone table, spilling tea over the mist cloth, where it was absorbed into the ‘fabric’, forming a gently swirling pattern. With the shatter ringing in my ears, the second lightning bolt drew up a stray memory - an empty wine bottle shattering against the wall in some unknown street. Staring into my teacup, I frowned. Though I hadn’t paid any attention to it at the time, the label on the bottle now swam before my eyes. It was _familiar_. In a rush of clarity, I realised what it was - because I’d seen it plenty of times, in cafes in New Rome, and even in the mess hall at Camp, on special occasions when the over-age Legionnaires were allowed a single glass of wine.

“I know where he might be! The Kantharos Winery!” Reyna and Octavian looked up. Reyna was just puzzled, but Octavian’s face suggested his stomach was sinking just as mine was. “ _Back in California_.”


	10. IX. Floating in the clouds

If Edith was surprised to see us drifting into view standing on a raincloud, she didn’t show it. For a moment, I wished we’d had more time to talk about her time as a Legionnaire - it seemed like she was used to some pretty bizarre things happening on quests. She’d made next to no progress with the plane, and had given up and was sitting in the cockpit, waiting out of the rain for us to return. Her relief when the situation was explained was palpable.

“Good. I’m going to have to call for help with this. You guys go with Amber.”

“Ambrosia.”

“Oh…sorry. You guys go with Ambrosia and I’ll radio in for assistance. There’ll be too many questions for you three to stick around.” Ambrosia walked around the plane twice, frowning a little. When she realised we were watching her, she gave a forced smile and rejoined us.

“Ready to leave? Ah! I almost forgot. For you, young lady.” She passed Edith a plate of leftover crumpets, which the pilot took with a certain amount of confusion. “Now then, let’s be off.”

Reyna and Octavian were both determined to stay as flat down to the vaguely solid surface Ambrosia had managed to form into, occasionally peering over the edge in a kind of fascinated horror. I stood happily at the front, leaning Titanic-style into the wind.

“Give us a push, would you dear? Else this is going to take a while.” It took me a moment to realise what Ambrosia meant. We were travelling against the wind now. Sure, she could do it - but it was literally like walking into the wind. Settling down into a cross-legged seating position where I could still see the patchwork of the ground far below, I called the sky to gather behind us.

“Little at a time.” Soon we were scudding along at a nice pace. The wind was happy to do what I wanted, so it didn’t take much concentration to keep us moving, and I was able to keep talking to Ambrosia. It wasn’t long before we were just complaining about planes.

“- so _dirty_! There I am, trying to give a nice little spring shower to some poor thirsty dryads, and this nasty mechanical _thing_ flies through, getting oil and grime into all my clean water!”

“They’re so _cramped_ , too! Just…you can’t feel the sky or the sun or the coldness of the air. You’re this bubble of _nothing interesting_ and the air is horrible and recycled, and I don’t know how anyone stands it.” I heard Reyna mutter something about how _not everyone can fly like a bird, pigeon-brain,_ but I didn’t think I was supposed to hear. Octavian laughed before I could turn around to point out _I’m perfectly capable of carrying you_ , and I decided not to. I lost most of my desire to talk to Ambrosia as well, embarrassed. This wasn’t the idea of being a “leader” I’d had in mind. Whenever I’d tried to imagine being centurion or praetor, there had been a lot more support and, _I’ll admit it_ , more awe. _Not_ being constantly judged and got at. I mean, okay, I mocked Rich happily inside my head, and occasionally out loud, but he could say some really daft things! And he was always looking down his nose at me. _Violet_ I’d only ever questioned once, and it had turned out that she’d been being manipulated by the Mist, so that was fair enough, all things considered. I didn’t question Mel or Alexis either, unless they asked for thoughts, or make snide comments behind their backs.

There’s nothing like watching the sun set from high up in the sky. The ground below was coated like honey in a golden glow, and the clouds turned from white to rosy pink, tinged with golds and purples. It was a glorious sunset, one of those that filled you with a kind of bubble of feeling like you fit, like you were part of something big and great. My mood lifted with the colours, then sank again with the vanishing of the sun. We’d lost so much time, travelling from one state to another - and we still didn’t even know what we were supposed to be doing. All I’d achieved so far was wrecking a plane and having a cup of tea with some crying nymphs, and I really doubted that was a key part of the continuing destiny of Rome, in the scheme of things. After a lot of staring at the stars, I curled up on my side and tried to get some sleep. There was nothing I could do about any of it now - I’d just have to hope I hadn’t botched everything completely.

Gnawing my way through my uneaten breakfast from the previous day in the early hours, when it was still dark, and wishing that we had another basket of food from Octavian’s mom (we didn’t want to ask Ambrosia if she had any food with her - being a cloud but making yourself solid enough to carry people was, we had been informed, pretty strenuous work, though it didn’t keep her from chattering away), my gloom settled into a heavy coil in the pit of my stomach and refused to leave. No matter how often I told myself to just _keep my chin up and get on with it_ , I couldn’t stop thinking over every flawed decision so far. Even watching Napa valley come into view didn’t help. The way things had gone so far, it was probably going to be another dead end, and then we’d be all out of ideas _again_. Maybe this time, we’d just quit and go home, hope it wasn’t too late for someone else to figure things out, or that we were overreacting, and the quest wasn’t anything important after all.

I tried to leave the thoughts behind as we jumped down the last couple of feet into the courtyard of the winery. Ambrosia solidified out of the cloud, stretching until her back popped in a series of clicks. Then she stopped and frowned.

“Oh, for the love of - !” She shook her head and started to stomp off towards the gate that led to the vineyard itself. “Why ever didn’t he just come and _ask_ us to give him a little extra rain for those poor things! Honestly, that _god._ ” It took an effort to keep my shoulders from dropping in disappointment. Having Ambrosia gave me a certain sense of confidence, not least because she seemed oblivious to how much of a wreck of everything I was making. Looking around the courtyard, I shivered a little. It wasn’t all that cold, particularly not compared to the temperature up at the heights Ambrosia had drifted at, even if she had been going much lower than usual for the sake of the three of us.

But the courtyard felt unearthly. It had a sort of…hollowness to it, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I’d bet my last handful of Deanarii that if one of Lupa’s pack had been with us, their fur would be standing on end. I realised I was starting to snarl under my breath, and stopped, embarrassed. Luckily, neither of the others seemed to have noticed.

“Does this place feel… _wrong_ to you?” Reyna’s voice was quiet and even, but I thought there was a rigidness to it that suggested it was only even because she was working very hard not to let it shake. Octavian and I nodded, all three of us still scanning our surroundings in search of monsters or any kind of trap. “It’s like…we’re _really_ not wanted here. There’s sourcery here.” The shake was still very _definitely_ not there, and I wondered what skeletons Reyna had in _her_ closet - well, what piles of monster dust, anyway.

And with that she stormed across the courtyard and flung open the door, so quickly that Octavian and I were still staring around us when she was halfway there, and hadn’t even gotten as far as opening our mouths to ask what she was up to when she yanked the door open with a screech of hinges and stepped inside.

“ _SILENUS!_ We need to talk to you! Anyone else…talk or get lost!” And there was a rattle of footsteps that suggested she’d started to run. Octavian and I exchanged confused glances, then shrugged and sighed in near synchrony.

“We’d better follow.”

“ _Rookies_.” And we took off in a run after her.

The interior of the winery was dark and dusty; it was easy to track Reyna, because we could see her footprints all along the corridor. In the distance, I could just hear her shouting something at regular intervals, punctuated by the slamming of doors, and I guessed she was demanding that Silenus show himself. Trying not to wheeze as dust filled my lungs with every step, I started cursing her internally. Octavian was right - _rookie_. Fair enough she hadn’t been on any missions or quests before, but she was smart enough that she ought to have known better than to just run around _announcing_ our presence in a unknown place! We caught up with her in the last room in the winery, a plush office that looked utterly uninhabited.

“What - do you think - you were _doing_?”

Alright, I’ll admit it - I shouldn’t have shouted at her, even in a hoarse whisper. I should have known better, I should have shown some common sense, I should have waited. But I was furious and scared and worried, and honestly I was just relieved we’d caught up with her rather than hearing an awful shriek as she was torn to pieces by some hideous monster. She drew herself up, dust streaked and panting, and too late I noticed the suspiciously bright shine to her eyes and the clear traces down her cheeks. Something here had her scared, _really_ scared, the kind of fear that caught Mel whenever Cyclopses threatened, and that was when I realised I had screwed up _again_.

“There’s an enchantment here to drive people _away_. And _anywhere_ people think I shouldn’t be is usually _right where I need to go._ ”

“This is wrong.” Octavian was ignoring the personal drama, and looking around the office with a scowl, absent mindedly brushing cobwebs from his shoulders. “I know for a fact that Camp received a delivery from the Kantharos Winery two _weeks_ ago. Even for the most slovenly of housekeepers, surely there’s too much grime?” I paid him no attention, because while he was speaking, Reyna slapped me.

Not a _oh hey that was going a little far_ tap, or even a _snap out of it_ blow, but a serious, lightning fast _I’m only not stabbing you because I’d have to clean up the blood_ smack around the face.

“And who are _you_ to tell _me_ not to just do things without thinking, you arrogant little _jerk_.” Octavian was staring in stunned surprise. “At least _I_ don’t blow things out of the sky without meaning to!”

“I didn’t - I can’t control the wind _all_ the time!”

“I know! That’s why we’re in a _dust cloud_.” I realised she was right. A breeze was whipping up around me, picking up dust and debris and whirling it around, faster and faster as I got angry. She stepped forward and grabbed the front of my t-shirt, dragging me up the last inch or so to look directly into my face, forcing me to stand on tip toes. “Because _you_ can’t control yourself at _all_ , and everyone is so _desperate_ to not offend your father that they won’t just _tell_ you that you’re _useless_.”

I didn’t do it. I swear to any god you choose to name that I didn’t want it to happen, didn’t even think it, but as fury and shame filled my mind completely, the wind roared in my ears and something crashed through the ceiling into me with a sound like a thunderclap. Reyna went down with a yelp, rolling away from me and stumbling to her feet in a defencive stance.

It took me a moment to realise that she was looking at _me_ in cold fury, that the horrified fascination on Octavian’s face was directed at _me_ , not some visiting monster. I felt…good, invigorated, blood singing in my ears and skin tingling like static. It wasn’t till I glanced down that I realised I _was_ static, the hairs on my arms standing on end and dust sticking to me like I was a magnet. With my own sense of dawning horror, I looked up. The sky had turned dark with thunderclouds, though even as I watched they dissipated away, letting the dawn light filter back in. I could see all this because where there had been an intact ceiling, there was a jagged, slightly charred hole directly over my head.

It had sounded like a thunderclap because it _was_ a thunderclap - the mark of a lighting bolt directly overhead, quite literally.

“I - I _didn’t_ -”

“Of course you did, young man. Only a child of Jupiter can pull a trick like _that_ out of the sky.”


	11. X. We take the grand tour

The swivel chair in the office had been empty when we walked in. It wasn’t anymore. Lounging on it was a plump old guy with a very red nose. His shirt was a truly awful grape print in eye smarting purple. He wasn’t wearing pants, but it didn’t matter because his legs were covered in thick grey-brown fur, ending in dark hooves that were polished to a shine. They bent in the wrong places too, because they weren’t human legs - they were horse legs. Octavian found his voice and wits first, and he bowed. Reyna and I hastily followed suit.

“My lord Silenus, King of Nysa and counsellor of Bacchus. It is an honour to stand in your presence.” The god laughed, and hiccoughed.

“Of course, of course, young legacy.” Octavian’s brows twitched in a hastily repressed scowl. He didn’t like being reminded that he was only a _descendant_ of Apollo, rather than a true demigod. Not that anyone else cared, unless they wanted to take him down a peg for some reason - which now I think of it was quite often. “But as I was saying, young child of Jupiter - lightning is in your blood and bones.” He picked up a goblet from a holder attached to the arm of his chair, and lifted it at me like a toast before taking a gulp of the deep red drink, smacking his lips appreciatively. He clicked his fingers over the empty glass, and it filled again. “Just like wine runs in _my_ veins! Like calls to like, as soon as you let it.”

His eyes shone with good humour when he met my stare, but there was something unnerving about it, a repressed wildness that made me shrink away while at the same time want to step forward and do… _something_. For all he seemed like a harmless, if slightly tipsy, old faun at the moment, I got the feeling he wasn’t one to cross. I didn’t think I’d like to know what happened when he let that wild edge out. He grinned at me, with a hint of a sneer, and I realised he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“My lord Silenus…” He glanced lazily over at Octavian again, and I was free to blink.

“Yes?”

“We - the three of us are on a quest.” The god rolled his eyes in a gesture that clearly said _nah, really?_ Octavian flushed, but pressed on. “The entrails are very unclear, but we _are_ certain it has some relation to lord Bacchus. We hoped that you would know - well, have a better idea at least what task the god wishes us to complete.” The god sat forwards.

“Bacchus? What’s the scallywag gotten into now?” He was smiling easily, poised as though he expected to hear some hilarious anecdote about his old friend. I shuffled, uneasy. This wasn’t quite the response I would have expected, but then I wasn’t sure how exactly I _would_ have thought he’d respond. “Haven’t heard from him in a while, now you mention it.”

“Well, sir, that’s the problem. We don’t really know.” Reyna had recovered from her shock, and was apparently back to being under control. Silenus glanced at her and sighed.

“Oh, dear… _another_ child of Bellona who never lets her hair down. Your mother can be a right killjoy as well, you know.” Reyna lifted her chin, letting the insult slide off her.

“I am on a quest. This is hardly the time, or the place, for fun.” You could have bent metal around the iron certainty of her pride, and despite my lingering bitter anger with her, I was impressed. Silenus apparently wasn’t, and just sighed heavily and gulped his wine. “As Octavian says, we have…limited information. But we think there is a deadline of the Bacchanalia. We were hoping you would know when the next such event would be, and anything else that might help us.” Octavian winced. It didn’t do to _demand_ information from gods - you had to wheedle and coax until they decided they wanted to help you. Before I could open my mouth to speak, he stepped forwards to draw attention away from Reyna.

“Our apologies for barging in, my lord, but we are concerned that the deadline might be quite…urgent, and we hoped that you would be able to give us some advice, as you are well known to be Lord Bacchus’ closest friend.” A flicker of some emotion passed over Silenus’ face, and from the way Reyna frowned, she saw it too. _Guilt_. He waved a hand, and a purple iPad materialised. He caught our stares and guffawed.

“ _So_ much easier than the old diaries. Plus I can play the fun game with the fruit and the knife when I’m bored. Let’s see…upcoming events with Bacchus…Aha! Of course.” He dropped the iPad, and it vanished before hitting the floor, and beamed at us. “He’s invited me and some other friends along to the opening of his favourite autumn wine festival. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before - we go every year. I think it’s one of his favourite events in the modern day, you know.” I cleared my throat.

“Uh…Lord Silenus? I’m afraid I don’t know which festival you’re talking about.” I forced a nervous smile. “Bit young for wine festivals, you see.”

“Oh, of course. Well, it’s right here in California! Sonoma Valley of the Moon wine festival. Lovely event. Good wine, and that’s coming from two - _hic! -_ experts.” He took another deep gulp of wine, not noticing when some sloshed over the rim of the cup as he lowered it, splattering his shirt.

“Now, why would old Bacchus be upset…well…I _suppose_ someone could have messed with something of his. If there’s a deadline…something he needs for the festival.” He scratched his bristly chin in theatrical thought.

I wasn’t looking at his face as he spoke, though. I was staring at his wine glass. Sure, he might be a little tipsy, but gods…well, gods don’t necessarily react the same as mortals to things. He might be _acting_ drunk, but I’d never heard of a god getting clumsy on drink - not on mortal drink, anyway. Maybe on Olympic-strength stuff, but if this was the same wine that the Praetors drank at fancy dinners? It wasn’t _that_ potent.

So there had to be another reason that Silenus’ hands were shaking so hard that wine splashed over the rim of the goblet even when it was resting on the desk. Then he let go to fiddle with something in his pocket absentmindedly, and I _knew_ something was up. The wine was still rippling like it was being disturbed. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t quite control how I affected the world around me.

Why would a _god_ be nervous of three demigods?

“I…what was your quest, again?” Octavian obediently recited it, and Silenus gave a almost imperceptible shudder. Maybe it would have been unnoticeable to anyone who couldn’t feel the slight disturbance to the air around him. “Weelll, the festival I think we’ve covered. As to the presence…all I can think of - _surely_ not - I haven’t _heard_ anything from him, but…well, if one of his leopards went missing, that would _really_ get his toga in a twist.” Octavian and Reyna exchanged delighted glances, and I tried to smile as well. Something was nagging at me, a feeling that I’d missed something obvious even though it fit with what little we knew - in fact, it made perfect sense.

The forgotten wine was swirling round inside the glass like a miniature whirlpool. Silenus followed my gaze and downed the drink. He didn’t refill it this time.

“Well, that’s all I can think of. I suggest you track down the Bacchae and see if you can get the leopard back.” He froze. “They…might have some better idea, you see, of where - “

“ _You_ know something _else.”_ Reyna sounded surprisingly threatening for a rookie recruit facing down a god. Octavian blinked and scowled.

“She’s right - that wasn’t a hint. That was…you had something to _do_ with it, didn’t you?” Silenus fidgeted, nervous, but his eyes were steady, burning with a kind of fierce light. I felt the ground under my feet start to shift.

“ _RUN!_ ”

“ _No_ , we need to _know_ -” Reyna actually unsheathed her sword, stepping level with Octavian as he spoke, stubbornly standing his ground and paying no attention to the uneven footing. Maybe they didn’t even notice.

“Move, _now!”_ Octavian just huffed in annoyance, and Reyna shot me a single poisonous look of contempt. Silenus started to grin, and caught my eye with a little shrug, as if to say _oh, bad luck, better luck next time_.

I leapt, letting the sky catch me and fling me through the hole in the ceiling as vines erupted from the wooden panelling and floor, whipping around my companion’s legs and dragging them flat. Hovering out of reach, I watched in dismay as they were cocooned like a spider’s supper until only their faces from the noses up were visible. More vines reached for me, but I was too high up for them to go without any kind of support, and they whipped around a foot below my dangling toes, unable to catch me. Silenus glared up at me, but he also looked kinda ashamed.

“Why the enchantment to keep us out?” It wasn’t the question I’d meant to ask, and the god was so startled that he actually answered.

“It wasn’t you three, boy! It was…I didn’t want anyone to find me, to see - to guess - and if they’d come _back_ -”

“To guess _what_? And _who?_ ” He shuddered at whatever memories were drifting through his mind. I tried a different tack. “You know, it’s a shame…” He looked up sharply, and I kept going, doing my best to channel Octavian’s slightly superior manner, the condescending boredom. “Us having gotten so _close_ to being able to help Lord Bacchus, and not being able to…thanks to _you.”_ I’d hit a nerve. The vines recoiled, the ones inside the winery twining closer to Silenus.

“I…I didn’t _mean_ to.”

_That_ scared me. Gods didn’t make mistakes - and if they did, they certainly didn’t admit it. It was something Mel had explained to me over and over, when I discovered myths I didn’t like and asked, aghast, why the gods were so _mean_ , why sometimes they did things that were so…harsh. _Gods are gods, Jason. They do things - good things, bad things - but in the end, they’re gods, and you can’t expect them to be human. They’re proud - well, of course they are, they’re_ gods. _You see, kiddo? That shapes everything about them. They’re immortals, near all powerful. Mortal morals and mistakes? Well, gods aren’t held to the same measures_. _You don’t have to like it, Jace, but you have to live with it._

“Didn’t mean to _what_?”

“Tell them how to kidnap the _leopard_!”

“So…why did you?” He seemed to deflate, vines withering and falling to the ground around him. The god sank back into his abandoned chair.

“The girl did something. I saw - I _saw_ it attack my poor Eyeore and she - she knew what to _say_ , promised me she could heal him but she’d need to catch the leopard first. I - I _told_ her…you just need to put out a bowl of wine mixed with nectar and the leopard will come like a bee to honey. And she thanked me and walked off, and then Eyeore leapt up as though he’d never been hurt…and the Bacchae followed her like lambs. I didn’t even know they were _there_.” I risked drifting lower.

“Well…why didn’t you just warn Bacchus then?”

“I was going to! But the - there was a - so _cold_ I couldn’t move -”

“Like the sun had vanished.” A chill ran down my spine. “And it stopped you?”

“For long enough.” He swallowed, looking on the verge of tears. I wondered how much I could trust him. He _was_ supposed to be a good friend to Bacchus. “And then it was too late, and I can’t - Bacchus is a good lad, but he wouldn’t listen till it was too late, I don’t know what the girl plans to do, but - he won’t believe I was Mist addled by a half-blood.” I didn’t know either, but I could guess it would be bad. If she could manipulate the mist well enough to fool a god, it sounded like Louisa Wells was back, and that could never be a good sign.

“It’s not too late.” _I hope._ “You know…if you help us out, well. If we’re successful, the leopard will go free, right? Bacchus is _sure_ to be happy about that. And we would get a chance to put in a good word for you, tell him how helpful you were.” He shook his head sadly and waved a hand.

“Not with all this dust about. I was planning to hide somewhere, tell him I’d been gone for months. You only just caught me before I left. And I made sure that this is all deep grubbiness. I can’t clear it all quickly - he’ll be over in a flash once the leopard is free.” I stared at him. Was he seriously going to turn down the chance to have his excuses made _for_ him, and be covered up for, because he wasn’t going to be able to _clean his house_ in time for Bacchus’ theoretical visit of thanks?

Apparently he was serious. I looked at the dusty building, and decided it was worth a shot - I couldn’t actually make anything _worse,_ could I?

“What if I can clean it all up for you…now?”

Sweat trickled down my spine before I even started, nerves making my hands shake. The last time I’d tried this, I’d made everything worse. Maybe I’d be better just finding a mop and using some elbow grease, but the sun was fully up now, and if Silenus was telling the truth about the next Bacchinalia we had less than a day to find the leopard, wherever it was. We didn’t have time for this _not_ to work.

I gripped a light breeze and began to twirl it until I had a baby wind spiral. I herded it along the floor, picking up the dirt as it went and leaving the planks of wood far cleaner than they had been. As it went, the wind stream grew bigger and bigger, until I was straining to keep it under control. It fought my grasp, trying to find any gap in my concentration and break free. I began to panic as it grew, and as it snuck worryingly close to Octavian’s face, forced it up and out of the ceiling. Shuddering, I stared around. Silenus was drinking again, and gave me a mocking toast.

“Only - _hic_ \- another three hundred hours like that and we’ll be squeaky clean.” I turned my back on him, thinking hard.

What had Ambrosia said about tea pots and rainclouds? _But frankly that gets a little too big to control._ And she had looked at me like I should know what she was talking about…

“Small. Small is easier.” Maybe it wasn’t just concentration. Maybe it was like pushing a wheelbarrow too - the more weight it had, the harder you had to work to keep it going in the right direction. I caught another breeze, and made it whisk around and up, not giving it _time_ to grow and fight my control. This was quicker, easier, than trying to direct one big wind, and I branched out, flicking winds through the rooms and corridors and out of any openings to scatter dust onto the bare ground of the courtyard.

I had a few slight mishaps. I blew a door off its hinges in my excitement, and a dead end led to me getting an unexpected face-full of dust, but by the time the sun was directly overhead, everything was at least respectably clean, even if it wasn’t quite up to regiment standards. Silenus pointed gloomily at the ceiling. I huffed.

“Just - just grow vines over it, or something. Say it was a drunken laugh. Say you put it there so the Hyades could visit you - they’d really love that, actually.” I realised that the fourth of our merry band was still out in the fields. “By the way…Ambrosia is out looking at your vineyard.” Silenus muttered something about interfering rain clouds, but I thought he sounded gruffly pleased. He stood, swaying a little, and pointed out the window.

“That shipment there is going to Sonoma for the festival. It’ll be picked up in - _hic_ \- twenty minutes. It’ll be delivered to the Bacchae there. ‘S your best chance of - _hic_ \- finding the leopard.” He gave me a pitying look. “Bad luck that they’ll tear you limb from limb before you can do anything.” He swayed, and collapsed, snoring. Grumbling to myself, I heaved him into the recovery position, hoping that first aid procedure for gods was the same as for mortals, and went to find Ambrosia.

I left her in charge of the sleeping Silenus after she’d helped me drag the other two, who were fast asleep as well, into the trailer. She assured me that they would be right as rain when they woke up, which I took to be a good thing coming from a rain nymph. It was a trick of the vines Silenus had wrapped them in - seed stock from the banks of the Lethe in Erebus, home of the Oneroi. The berries had oozed into their mouths, and sent them to sleep before they’d even realised what was going on.

As the trailer was hooked up to a truck with a jerk that bashed my head against the metal wall, I tried to think of a plan. Silenus had a point. The Bacchae would tear any man - or boy - apart on sight. If they caught Octavian or I, we were doomed - which meant Reyna was going to be our only chance to figure things out.

She was going to just _love_ that.


	12. XI. The Bacchae's next top model

Octavian and I exchanged glances as Reyna threw a tennis ball she had found somewhere at the wall of the container. It ricocheted back at her, and she ducked at the last minute. Octavian yelped as it struck him directly between the eyes, and shot her a wounded look. She just grimaced back, thin lipped with anger. I shuddered a little, even though she wasn’t glaring at me for once.

It was safe to say that the idea of going undercover with the Bacchae was not Reyna’s favourite. Honestly, it wasn’t mine either, especially not after how she’d dealt with our arrival at the winery, but I didn’t know what else we _could_ do. If Silenus was right - and my instincts screamed that he was - we had less than a day to find the leopard and figure out how to get it back to Bacchus in time. We didn’t exactly have the luxury of spending days coming up with a better plan. Besides, at least _she_ wouldn’t be torn to pieces immediately if spotted.

Reyna bounced the tennis ball as hard as she could in my direction, scowl deepening even further when I used a puff of air to deflect it.

"You could just _dodge_ , like a normal person." I grinned at her, though as my teeth were gritted it was probably more of a grimace.

"But I'm _not_ normal - I'm half Roman god, remember?"

The van lurched, throwing us into each other as we were caught by surprise. Once we’d righted ourselves I curled up to get some sleep, balling a jumper up to make a pillow. Reyna started muttering angrily to herself, and Octavian soon started on a monologue of passive aggressive replies, so I tugged the sleeves firmly over my ears. It wasn't a long journey to Sonoma - I needed to catch a catnap while I could, else I’d be worse than useless when we got there. Let one of _them_ come up with a better plan in the meantime.

I dreamed I was on guard duty with Mel, watching cars whizz past on the highway towards the Caldecott Tunnel in the ruddy orange light of sundown, which was how I knew it was a dream not a vision - it wasn’t sundown anywhere in America, so I couldn’t be having a _true_ vision. Then Mel turned to me and spoke, and all my happy _this is a nice dream for once_ feelings evaporated.

“Ah, my brave young Roman. You are learning, but not quickly enough.” It wasn’t Mel’s voice, and that alone freaked me out, watching her mouth move but hearing someone else talk. “My dear brother and I may not always see eye to eye…but in some things he has a point. You would do well to heed the dual nature of Bacchus, lest you find that your inability to control yourself leads to more tragedy.”

For a moment, I was sufficiently taken aback that I forgot that this sounded like a god talking, and argued rather than smiling and bowing and saying thank you _ever so much_ for the advice.

“ _Tragedy_? I haven’t - it’s not like I’ve -” Not-Mel held up a hand, looking faintly amused.

“Ah, but even now you _prove_ my point.” She pointed to the ground. Autumn leaves were whipping along the ground on a circling breeze, one that hadn’t been there before. “You are _growing_ , son of Zeus and ward of mine. As you grow, so do your powers. You must grow _faster_ than your abilities, or they will destroy you. You may survive lightning strikes; you may even protect those you are near by drawing it away. But if it strikes at will - then you wield uncontrolled death.”

I opened my mouth to argue, and hesitated. I remembered the plane, plummeting from the sky, everyone unconscious but me. _Could_ I be certain I hadn’t caused it? Juno/Mel looked at me with a level gaze, eyes flickering disconcertingly between Mel’s familiar dark brown and the goddess’ shifting peacock hues.

“Death is your shadow, child of Rome. It's in all our shadows - we carry sword and spear and hope to outrun it as long as we may. Even the gods have the death of our era whispering in the depths of our minds. And with _our_ death would come yours - the death of everything you call home. I advise you do not let that happen.”

I woke up abruptly, because Reyna was poking me, hard enough to bruise. I glared at her as I squirmed away.

"Y'know, you could at least _try_ a gentle shake of the shoulder." The faintest ghost of a smirk flickered over her face before she schooled her features into a blank mask.

"You've been asleep long enough. We need to figure out _exactly_ how this is going to work." I didn't ask about her apparent change of heart - maybe I'd find out later why she'd decided that our rough plan was the only option. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Apparently the teddy bears don't have any answers for us." She ducked as a decapitated bear head was lobbed at the back if her head with a muttered ' _you figure things out, then_ '. I didn't react in time and ended up with a mouthful of stuffing. I'd expected Reyna to laugh her head off, seeing as she'd been so determined to brain me with a tennis ball, but her expression didn't so much as twitch.

Spitting out fluff I sat up, leaning against the side of the container, shoving my jumper pillow behind my head to cushion it. Octavian had the remains of several bears littered around him - his bag must've been stuffed full of cuddly animals at the start of the trip - and he was glaring stubbornly at his latest sacrifice. For all her mockery, Reyna was careful not to disturb the entrails while she shuffled until she was sat comfortably.

"So. The Bacchae. How do I pull this off?" She swallowed hard, and I realised she was actually _nervous_. I'd sort of assumed she was angry at having the tough job lumped on her, or disgusted at the idea of having to pretend to be a Bacchae, complete with bloodthirsty nature. It hadn't occurred to me that she'd be worried about managing it. She'd always been so completely sure she could get anything done that I'd half expected we'd have to caution her not to be too confident.

"You'll be fine." She scowled. Apparently comforting wasn't the right tone. I tried to think what Mel would say to me, but it wasn't much help. Mel was _Mel_. I wasn't; and Reyna wasn't me. "We'll shadow you - I'll fly us up if necessary. We need to set up a signal that says you've found the leopard. All you need to do is pretend you're a new recruit - you're younger than most of them, so that should be fine."

"So long as they're used to random girls showing up uninvited and wanting to join." Octavian's dark mutter made me jump. I'd kinda forgotten he was listening.

"I thought about that earlier, while you were both still asleep." They both flushed a little at the reminder.

"Tell them you went to Silenus and he sent you along. As proof, you'll give them a token from him."

"And where am I supposed to _get_ this -" I thumped the nearest barrel with a grin, cutting her off.

"I reckon one of these small ones should do." Octavian nodded thoughtfully.

“That...might work."

"How reassuring."

"Way to look in the bright side there, you little ray of sunshine." Octavian spared me an eye roll before turning to Reyna.

"We need to figure out the details of the plan. But _first_ we need to figure out how to make you fit in with the Bacchae..."


	13. XII. Things go to Dis

Dropping through the open skylight I was thankful for years of coaching from Lupa on how to move like a wolf, the near silent nature of a creature who’s life hangs in its ability to not startle its prey. Octavian and I landed gently, even though getting a breeze to set us down lightly in an enclosed space was something I hadn't quite mastered, bending knees on impact and not making a sound. We scurried backwards without speaking, wanting to be out of the scant moonlight as quickly as possible. Neither of us wanted a run in with the Bacchae; any encounter would almost certainly end in death for both of us.

Creeping through the attic space of the hideout of a bunch of women who are basically known for tearing guys _literally_ apart is not an ideal moment to start pondering your mortality, which is unfortunate because it's also nearly impossible _not_ to. A plank creaked under Octavian's foot, and I jumped a foot in the air and stayed there, Ivlivs already out and braced to flip. He waved his hands in a calming gesture. Before I could be too embarrassed at being so jumpy, I realised he was shaking - frantic little shudders, twitching at the slightest sound. I gave him a faint, unconvincing smile, dropping back to the floor as quietly as I could. He jerked his head, lips pinched together tightly enough that I could see them outlined in white - a feat on someone as pale as Octavian - and we continued.

_Death is your shadow, child of Rome. It's in all our shadows - we carry sword and spear and hope to outrun it as long as we may. Even the gods have the death of our era whispering in the depths of our minds._ Not for the first time, I wondered whether this had been a warning. It certainly struck me as an ill omen that the first time my godly patron spoke to me directly since I first joined the Legion was to tell me death lurked in my shadow. Slinking through the shadows, senses straining for the slightest hint of danger, I thought that maybe I wasn't running in the right direction. Maybe she'd been warning me I was walking towards my own death.

Octavian fell down the stairs.

Falling down the stairs in armour is not in the top ten list of stealth moves. It's not even in the top _fifty_. He bounced and clattered on every step, yelping as elbows and skull knocked against the sharp edges. I ran after him, hopping on gusts of air to take them three at a time, but he was rolling quickly and I only caught up with him at the bottom. He groaned and clutched his head as he sat up.

It occurred to me too late that, when in a hostile location, the most sensible direction to run when your only companion has just fallen down the stairs and made a huge amount of noise is not, in fact, the same direction they just went. _Away_ would be the more sensible option, because then one of you would still be loose to plan a rescue operation when the enemy rushed to find the intruder. Instead, we both looked the length of two pine cone tipped staffs - _thyruses_ \- into the bright, frenzied eyes of a pair of the Bacchae. Three more spread out in the narrow corridor, one squeezing to stand behind me and Octavian, cutting off any route of escape.

"Lord Bacchus sent us." I should have proclaimed it with a Imperial gold dignity. I should have sneered. I should have pretended I was Octavian reading out the auguries. Instead, I just blurted it out on a frantic bluff in a painfully transparent attempt to save my skin. But it did make the Bacchae exchanges glances, and none of them immediately leapt forwards to tear us limb from limb, so that was a start. I set my jaw and tried to square my shoulders and look confidant, which is kinda tricky when the point of a pine cone is resting against your throat ready to impale you and another of the Bacchae is standing behind you. Up close, the Bacchae were _terrifying_ \- not _terrifying-but-beautiful_ , like Lupa and her pack, but just a primeval _oh-gods-oh-gods_ kind of awful.

Mel had managed to drag me to an art gallery outside of New Rome, years ago, and only once. After _that_ trip the praetors had firmly banned me from extended trips to mortal places, because I attracted too many monsters. There had been a painting of the Bacchae, which Mel had just rolled her eyes at and told me was horribly inaccurate. Someone had overheard and started an argument, all snooty and pointing out that it was _fine art_. Mel had pointed out quite calmly that a bunch of people known for tearing wild animals and men apart and then being reputed to drink their blood _probably_ wouldn’t be that _clean_ , let alone as surprisingly elegantly presented. She had been right, of course. In real life, the Bacchae were _filthy,_ clothes covered in a mix of wine and blood stains, hair matted and unkempt. One or two even had blood smeared on their _faces_ , and they _reeked_ of old blood and stale wine, an almost physical stench that made my stomach turn in rebellion.

“Lord Bacchus is not _able_ to send anyone.” It was the one standing behind me, and I fought the urge to cower away. I’d impale myself on the thyrus at my throat like a piece of cheese on a cocktail stick. “Lord Bacchus is…currently unable to contact us.”

“Which is why he contacted _us_ instead _._ He…ah…couldn’t get through to you. For some reason. Still not sure why, which is why he sent us. As…deputies.” Octavian just nodded, managing to not look too much like this was all news to him. The Bacchae holding a spear to my throat looked like she might actually be considering it, though, much to my surprise. She appeared to be in the lead, because when she nodded decisively to herself and ordered the others to drag us down _more_ stairs so that all of the Bacchae could decide whether we were lying or not together, they didn’t argue - although the one standing behind me gave me a sly kick in the back when the boss wasn’t watching.

Pretty soon Octavian and I were tied up and sat in the middle of a ring of Bacchae, who were eyeing us with a mix of suspicion and barely restrained blood-thirst. We’d found the leopard at least - locked in a cage against one wall. When we were first dragged in, some of the Bacchae had been clustered around it, trying to talk to ‘Bacchus’, but they’d abandoned the attempt when called over. The leopard snarled and paced, not happy at being confined. I also figured it could see the Bacchae off to one side sharpening a golden scythe. I got the feeling that Bacchae circle time hadn’t just been called because of us - it looked like our _by tonight_ deadline wasn’t because Bacchus would get impatient and wreak havoc.

Reyna slunk in with the last few Bacchae, and almost tripped over her own feet when she spotted us. Eyes wide, she shuffled into place at the back of the crowd. She was almost unrecognisable, even after the short time she’d spend with the Bacchae - hair tangled, wearing the same “distressed clubwear” style of clothing as the rest of them, clutching a pine cone tipped staff like it was a lifeline. While a daring rescue would’ve been nice, I was relieved that she hadn’t already been caught _and_ hadn’t given herself away on seeing us. It was nice to know that _one_ of us would probably walk out alive. She might even manage to get the leopard out, which was unlikely to help us but could stop the end of the world as we knew it.

There was a lot of hurried talking and suspicious glances in our direction. After a few minutes, the apparent leader stalked over to us and prodded me with the base of her staff.

“You claim Bacchus has sent you. But Bacchus is trapped! He cannot talk even to _us_ , his loyal Bacchae! He does not respond even to his _favourite music_.” One of the Bacchae actually started to cry, while another hummed a pop song sadly. If _that_ was how they’d tried to contact him, I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t bothered answering.

“Er…yeah. Not sure about that. But he definitely sent _us_ a message!” It occurred to me belatedly that this was actually _true_. “He turned a whole fence into a grapevine and caused a shower of pine-cones to make sure we knew it was him.”

_That_ got their attention, and I couldn't help a small sigh of relief as some of the aggressive stares turned puzzled. But there were still plenty of Bacchae eyeing us suspiciously, and I couldn't afford to relax quite yet. Spears tend to have that effect, strangely. I nodded seriously.

"He was very clear that he had an urgent task for us. Priority one." Several of the Bacchae whooped and cheered, though some still seemed angry and most just looked confused, a feeling I perfectly understood because I had no idea why they were suddenly so _happy_.

"A party!?" The high-pitched, excited squeal threw me, mostly because I could see Reyna's mouth _moving_ , but I hadn't realised she could sound so...well. So much like an excited teenage girl. Murderous? Check. 100% _done_ with my existence? Check. Weirdly authoritative? _Dis_ yes. But _excitable_ was a new one.

"Welllllll..."

Several of the other Bacchae took up the exclamation, and Reyna narrowed her eyes briefly at me in her trademark _how does anyone this daft even exist_ glance. It dawned that she was giving me a hint. Party. The Bacchae _liked_ parties. Enough that they were the number one priority? Apparently so.

"Of course! A big party! Bacchus wants to plan a massive party, and he's been so busy that, uh, it took a little while for him to realise his...calls weren't getting through." How did Bacchus keep in contact with his minions? Did he have a Blackberry? But nobody stabbed me, so I guessed whatever he used I'd gotten close enough. Or they were just so excited by the idea of a party that they didn't care. "Aaaannnd of course, there's so much planning to do that he couldn't come _himself_ so he asked us to instead! As deputies! You see, he, uh...needs his leopard. For the party. Like, no leopard by this evening, no party."

Reyna backed me up by giving a wail of despair. Honestly, it was _transparently_ fake, but the Bacchae were so distressed by the thought that they fell for it and joined in. I nodded sympathetically.

"So, you see, we really need to take the leopard back to Bacchus pronto, or..." I spread my hands and shook my head sadly, as though Bacchus cancelling his party was just too tragic to contemplate.

"But Lord Bacchus _is_ the leopard." The voice came from behind me.

"Um. No. No, he's not." Not the most brilliant reply, but I couldn't think of anything better.

"Yes, he _is_." The mystery voice was annoying me. I wished they would just shut up, because some of the Bacchae were agreeing, and the last thing we wanted was that. "He has been trapped! We must free him!"

" _Trapped_? Bacchus, Lord of the Vine, _trapped_?" I had never been so pleased to hear Octavian's most stuffy and sneering voice. I didn't need to look to know he was drawing himself up with as much dignity as can be managed when you're sat on the floor covered in dust and bruises and being threatened with spears. The spears were _really_ starting to weigh on my mind. "How _dare_ you insult him in such a fashion. What manner of being do you suggest have the skill and power to entrap Bacchus himself?"

There was a ripple of unease amongst the Bacchae, and those before us actually stepped back, murmuring worriedly. I forced myself to my feet, giving Octavian a hand up and trying to look dignified. _Son of Jupiter. I am a son of Jupiter. Dignity should come naturally to me. I don't think it_ does _, but still_. I narrowed my eyes at the Bacchae.

"Indeed. A grave insult to your patron, one that I do not look forwards to passing on. But, if you will not allow us to escort his leopard to its rightful place at his side..."

Reyna took her cue, scurrying to the leopard's cage and wrenching urgently at the lock.

"No! No, don't! He'll...never invite us to his parties again!"


	14. XIII. Lightning strikes

The other Bacchae panicked. A few still protested, claiming the word of two males was not to be trusted, but the boss unlocked the cage. The leopard padded out, tail lashing, teeth bared, and I had a moment of unease. How were we to _get_ it out? I didn't exactly want to be torn to shreds by a leopard any more than by the Bacchae. Reyna strode forward and grasped the heavy vine rope tied around the creatures neck, tugging gently to lead it towards me and Octavian. To my surprise, it followed her. Maybe being a god's leopard it understood we were helping, because when one of the other Bacchae tried to pet it she had to stumble back to avoid the swipe of its claws.

"What sorcery do they use!?" It was the voice of my least favourite Bacchae. "What witchery leads our Lord calmly yet turns him on his own followers!" I ignored it, pushing the air to impressively blast the door open as I strode towards it, while the Bacchae hesitantly stepped out of my way.

I felt the second punch in the air as I did and turned, already reaching for Ivlivs, wind swirling with me. The flung spear veered off course, but not enough - I had thought it was flung at me, or Octavian. Not Reyna, who was hampered by the leopard and couldn't dodge. It missed its mark, but a spear to the shoulder is still pretty bad. And - you guessed it - I messed up _again_ , because I didn't even realise I was shouting her name as she stumbled to one knee.

"Traitors! Trickery!" This was another of the Bacchae, and unfortunately they all seemed to agree. I'd just exposed us by mistake, and now all three of us were in _big_ trouble. Deciding that talking was now no longer an option, I flicked Ivlivs. Just my luck, it came down as a sword, which against a whole load of angry ladies with spears wasn't the most reassuring result. But there wasn't time to toss it again, so I squared my shoulders and tried to look confident. Octavian drew his own sword, and Reyna wrenched the spear in her shoulder free, giving her a weapon in each hand even if she could barely use one arm and was definitely on a time limit now before blood loss started to be an issue.

I whipped the wind around us, trying to clear space and a path to the door. The leopard snarled and lunged, Reyna stabbing at any Bacchae who came too close. Octavian and I stood back to back, bracing ourselves for a holding action until Reyna could join is, years of Legion training guiding us without thought. We may never before have truly fought as allies. We may not even be friends, really. But we were all Legionnaires, and in battle that was what mattered.

But we were also outnumbered, and wildly outgunned. The Bacchae were older, bigger, stronger. They were also more bloodthirsty, going for the metaphorical - and sometimes literal - throat with every attack. They also seemed to have their own corps of trained fighters, younger Bacchae who had clearly trained together.

Who _all_ wielded Imperial Gold swords alongside their staffs.

I realised with a sense of horror that we maybe weren't the first to infiltrate the Bacchae. After all - if you've gone to the effort of fooling them into thinking Bacchus was trapped in a leopard, why _wouldn't_ you keep people on the inside to make sure things went as planned? Cursing myself for a fool, I blocked a staff and lopped its pine cone tip off. Octavian went down, and hands grabbed the back of my shirt, yanking me off balance, flinging Ivlivs from my grasp. The doors, only a few metres away, were slammed closed and bolted as I was pinned to the floor.

Struggling under the weight of the Bacchae on top of me, I snarled in fury. We were so _close_ , and we were going to fail anyway. Four of the Bacchae herded the leopard at spear tip, actually _apologising_ and promising that he’d understand in a moment, that they’d free him soon. Ivlivs lay only a few inches away, but with my arms pinned, my weapon may as well have been on the other side of the world for all the good it would do.

The leopard roared in pain and anger as a pine cone spear tip scratched its swiping paw, a line of scarlet welling up and leaving bloody paw prints on the floor. I screamed in fury in reply - at how everything had gone wrong, at the Bacchae for being fooled, at Bacchus for not just _showing up to tell them they were wrong -_ and something twisted in my gut and roared in my ears, and with an ear-splitting _crack_ lightning struck the building, blasting a hole in the roof and lighting the edges on fire. But it hadn’t struck the Bacchae, or caused more than a momentary distraction. The poor leopard was still being forced towards the Bacchae with the golden scythe.

She _laughed_ , sparing me a brief, contemptuous glance, and that was when I finally recognised her.

“ _Louisa_.” It was nothing but a hiss. Lightning sparked again, but it was drawn to the metal in her hands rather than striking _her_ down, and the handle shielded her. Even so, she flinched a little and glared at me, which was something. For the first time I was using lightning while I was aware of it, and now the route had been opened I couldn’t seem to _stop_ it. Lightning struck to my left, my right - it hit one of the Bacchae and she screeched and fell to the ground - it was mine, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t _direct_ it - couldn’t send it to take down the Bacchae herding the leopard, or to wipe out Louisa who had already tried to destroy my home and the gods themselves. Reyna yelped as a bolt struck one of the Bacchae surrounding her, stumbling away as quickly as she could, hemmed by the rest of her attackers. Fear bloomed in my gut - one person over and it would’ve struck _her_ \- and she might be annoying and apparently live to criticise me, but I didn’t want to _kill_ her.

 _But if it strikes at will - then you wield uncontrolled death._ Juno’s voice echoed in my ears. It seemed that I had been right after all. She _had_ been warning me about the near future. It just hadn’t been my death she was talking about - or at least, not _only_ my death. But I didn’t understand _how_ to control it, and really, that would’ve been much more useful for her to pass on. If she’d known the danger, if she’d known that I’d have to control it – why hadn’t she told me how to?

It occurred to me that maybe she had. _The dual nature of Bacchus_..? I remembered the art gallery, Mel scowling at the painting of the beautiful and elegant women who were supposed to be the wild followers of Bacchus, telling me about the _real_ thing. He’s _god of wine and festivities, and his followers represent that at its extreme. They’re purely emotive - in myth, at least - and they’re…well, they’re kinda awful because of it. With no control, no restraint, they do awful things and become awful creatures._

And the flip side had been the opposite extreme: if you didn’t let your emotions in sometimes and just tried to repress everything, you’d be a volcano. You’d be in control _most_ of the time, but you’d slip when everything you’d bottled up just burst through. You had to find the balance.

I took a deep breath, straining to find the connection between me and the lightning and cut it off. It was like trying to compress a gel-filled toy - whenever I snuffed out the lightning call in one direction, it would burst out on the other side. _Balance_.

Maybe the key wasn’t trying to _stop_ the lighting. All I wanted to do was _direct_ it. When I felt the twist in my stomach that meant another bolt was building, I thought about delaying it instead of stopping it. I fed the next twinge into it as well, and the next, head buzzing with the static in the air. When the next bolt I reached for twisted out of my control, striking the staircase, I stopped and thought about aiming, wishing I could move. I felt like this would be easier if I could actually point, or use Ivlivs to direct the arc.

The Bacchae had managed to get a rope harness around the leopard’s throat and another around two of its legs while I struggled, and were dragging it towards Louisa. The lighting waiting in the sky was straining to be released, but I hesitated. Even if I took out Louisa, what would happen next? One of her supporters in disguise would just take the blade instead. It might not even hurt her - she was holding the metal with an insulated grip. A drip of something dark landing on head drew my gaze to the giant barrel the Bacchae had set up. Scorch marks showed where it had already been struck by the first bolt of lightning blasting through the ceiling. Drips of wine leaked from a narrow split. Taking out _Louisa_ wouldn’t stop this. But maybe distracting the real Bacchae would give us a chance to do _something_.

The leopard snarled in pain, and I loosed the bolt of lightning. They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but it turned out they were wrong where I was concerned - it hit dead on target, shattering the top of the barrel and loosing a waterfall of wine. It poured over Louisa, the force knocking her off her feet, and drenched the Bacchae. In a matter of seconds, all of the Bacchae had given up whatever else they were doing and were _dancing_ in the already slowing flow, holding cups they wore on leather necklaces up to fill and gulping it down.

 _“Spears of pine neath dark waves yield.”_ Octavian’s shocked whisper broke me out of my daze.

I grabbed Ivlivs and struggled to my feet so I could stumble over to the leopard, who was lying on his side, unable to get up. Maybe it knew I was a friend, or maybe it was just too worn out to respond, but I managed to cut the ropes loose without hearing so much as a snarl. Wine soaked into its fur and dripped into its eyes, but it lowered its head and began to _drink_.

“Well, I suppose you _are_ one of Bacchus’ leopards. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.”


	15. XIV. Leopard print

Splashing nearby caught my attention. The false Bacchae were hauling Louisa to her feet, stumbling towards the back door. I started after them, and swayed. For a moment there were two of Louisa and her friends - then three - then one again, but still a wavering vision, and I realised I was exhausted. A louder splash startled me, before I realised it was me, falling to my knees in the puddle of wine.

Reyna pushed herself to her feet, dripping wine and coughing, staggering determinedly after them, slipping and sliding. She drew to an abrupt halt as the Bacchae began to sit up, levelling her spear and backing up until she stood by me. Octavian shuffled over, eyes darting frantically, clutching a length of charred wood as a makeshift weapon. Unconcerned, the leopard kept lapping up wine contentedly, tail swishing gently side to side.

Some of the Bacchae simply rolled over, scooping wine up with their cupped hands and gulping it down, laughing in bemused delight. Others seemed to be channelling more of the _bloodthirsty_ part of their reputation, glaring at the three of us and dragging themselves to their feet. The leader pointed her spear at us and opened her mouth, features twisted in fury.

_Splash, splash…Crack!_

Cautiously, I turned my head. The leopard had padded further into the wine pool, traces of blood from the cuts on his paws mixing with the red liquid. In the swirling eddies where it had just stood, something green was pushing its way through the floor. It took a minute for my tired brain to understand what it was, and then I started to laugh in giddy relief. Even in that brief delay, the grapevine had grown by several feet. Two more sprung up in the leopard’s wake, throwing out runners and leaves, tendrils twining around each other until they formed a chair.

And then there was a man sat on the grapevine throne, wearing a leopard print toga. Octavian and Reyna fell to their knees next to me; not from exhaustion, but from respect. We bowed, still kneeling, foreheads pressing unpleasantly into the puddle of wine. Cries of joy sprung up from the Bacchae.

“Lord Bacchus! My lord!”

“You are returned!” At least three of them also started humming the same pop song as before, though much more cheerfully. Bacchus snapped his fingers, and silence fell. Something told me the god wasn’t sharing his followers’ festive mood, but I didn’t dare look up. Gods demanded respect; if they didn’t get it, they _took_ it.

“You _dare_ to harm my sacred creature? You _dare_ to spill his blood and greet me with _joy_? I am not _returned_. I am _avenging_.”

I looked up, respect be damned.

“Sir! They were tricked. They believed they were _helping_ you, my lord, they believed…” He glared at me, and I faltered. His eyes were bright purple, and the longer his gaze held mine, the dizzier I felt.

“Jason’s right, Lord Bacchus.” Reyna had sat up too, rocking back on her heels. I could feel her trembling, ever so slightly, but her voice didn’t shake at all. “They were fooled into believing sacrificing the leopard was the only way to _save_ you.”

“ _Save_ me? Save a _god_? From _what_ , mortal, do you presume _I_ would need _saving_?” I drew in a deep breath, bracing myself. _Even the gods have the death of our era whispering in the depths of our minds._

“From someone who’s tried to kill a god before - and _almost_ managed it. From someone who wants the Olympians gone - for the era of the gods to end.” I was thinking of Louisa, but I also remembered the fierce, cold presence in my dreams. She wasn’t working alone, we’d seen that - and I was prepared to bet she had something powerful on her side.

For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of something like fear in his eyes, then the god sat back, stroking his chin. The leopard padded up and butted happily against his free hand until he started to scratch behind its ears. I held my breath. The Bacchae were terrifying, deadly, and I’d personally love it if they disbanded - but they were also his loyal followers. I didn’t really think it was fair for them to be punished for trying to save him.

“Leave. I want to see _none_ of you until this festival is finished. _Now_.” The Bacchae fled obediently, leaving us with the god of wine and his leopard. He surveyed us for a moment, then sighed.

“I suppose I owe you some thanks for this. Something shielded my friend here from my view, kept me from my followers…this stunt of yours at least broke through that barrier.” He plucked a bunch of grapes from the arm of his chair, and picked out three, throwing one to each of us. “Eat. They will save you the journey home, though perhaps not much time.”

I caught it, relief making me giddy - or maybe that was just exhaustion, or the knock to my head. I hadn’t had much time to think about the journey home, but I’d been expecting it to be a weary trudge back.

“Thank you, my lord.” About to eat the grape, I remembered my promise to Silenus. “We couldn’t have done it without the help of Lord Silenus. He helped us to figure out the message meant, and…uh, figured out that it was your leopard that was missing.” I cleared my throat. “Just…thought I should mention, y’know. Also, Ambrosia and the Hyades miss you. Um. I think they’d appreciate it if you dropped by for a cup of tea sometime.” The god grunted.

“ _Tea_? Of all the insipid beverages, they want me to drink _tea_?”

“Well…they didn’t quite say that, sir. I think it was more seeing _you_ , and Silenus, actually. Sir. I’m sure if you preferred wine they wouldn’t mind.” Before I could put my foot in it even further and sound like I was trying to order him around, I caught Reyna and Octavian’s eyes, and we ate the grapes.

The flavour was overpowering, rich and wild and sweet. My vision blurred, swirls of colour and texture. For a moment, I walked alongside the girl from my dreams, and she smiled and raised a hand in fond greeting, as though she knew me, before she was gone in a swirl of silver. I floated on, disembodied again. After a moment, I was aware of the presence of Reyna and Octavian, faint disturbances in the haze I floated in. Together we were carried along, drifting like leaves caught in a strong breeze. Images shimmered in and out of my vision - Ambrosia drifting through the sky towards Mount Nysa, Edith directing mechanics over her beloved plane, Bacchus and Silenus toasting each other as the leopards padded happily around the wine festival alongside them. Bacchus’ eyes caught mine, and his expression flickered. He was _worried_ , though he was acting as though he wasn’t. He tipped his cup to me in slight toast, an acknowledgment, and the image faded again, leaving us to drift.

A cold thread twined around us, a familiar coolness that made me shudder, a sense of darkness and pressure.

_Foiled again? This is getting most…inconvenient._

_“Sir…”_

_No matter…a delay, nothing more. The Bacchae would have been of use, but they were never essential, and the wine god is a minor challenge. Polus has spoken…_

As I was still twisting my ghostly head back and forth, searching for Louisa and whoever she was talking to, their words becoming fainter, the purple haze faded away - leaving us standing on the high table in the mess hall at camp Jupiter.

We looked at each other in shocked silence, ignoring the commotion around us as the Legion stumbled to their feet. I knew the words were echoing in their minds just as they were in mine - or rather, one _name._

_Polus -_ pillar of the North, the axis of heaven.

One of the elder Titans.


	16. Who's Who & glossary

**_Who_ ** **_’s who: the spotters guide to the Olympic Deities_ **

****

  * **Apollo** \- God of the sun, and various other things notably healing, music and prophecy. It’s an eclectic mix, to say the least. [Greek = Apollo] (Octavian’s distant ancestor)
  * **Bellona -** The goddess of war. She’s one of the major guiding gods of the Legion. As the _Lares_ are forever reminding me, “back in the day” (i.e. before the fall of the Roman Empire), the temple of Bellona was used as the meeting place whenever the senate met to discuss foreign war. The temple in New Rome is a little too small for that, so we don’t keep to that particular tradition - much to the grumbling of the _lares_ \- though we do still throw a spear into a patch of earth in the temple when we declare war on someone. [Greek = Enyo] (Reyna’s mother)
  * **Bacchus** \- The god of the vine - wine, that is, not the video thing. Although being known for his wild parties and general frolicsome nature, he’s probably gotten in on that too. He may be the god of drunken partying, but like all gods, _not_ to be crossed. When he was living on Earth back in the early days a few people made the mistake of trying to arrest him, mocking him - some got turned into dolphins, others just got torn apart by their own mothers. Cheery stuff. [Greek = Dionysus]
  * **Fortuna -** Called upon whenever you cross your fingers or just pray that things work out, _just this once_ , the Goddess of luck is one of the most frequently worshipped gods, even if most of the time people don’t even realise they’re praying to her. [Greek = Tyche]
  * **Juno -** Goddess of marriage, with special ties to Rome and the Legion. She’s not only my godly stepmom, she’s also my official patron - in terms of godly influence, she’s got as much (if not more) sway over my life than my father. [Greek = Hera] 
  * **Jupiter** \- God of the sky. Also the boss god of the Olympians, and my dear old dad. We don’t have much to do with each other, though he occasionally sends immortal eagles to visit me in my dreams if he feels like getting especially involved. [Greek = Zeus] 
  * **Lupa -** Lupa’s favourite story is the one about the time she raised a pair of twins who went on to fight to the death over who got to name their new city. This…probably tells you a lot about her parenting approach, but she is actually pretty good with small kids. Nowadays she’s the godly head of the Legion, but leaves the day to day management to the praetors, just popping up occasionally to advise and oversee (and scare recruits into paying attention)
  * **Morpheus** \- One of the three Oneiroi; The god of dreams. Appears in dreams in human form, so be polite to everyone in your dreams The gods tend not to take ignorance as an excuse for not showing due respect. [Edith’s father]
  * **Oneiroi** \- Three of the thousand children of Somnus: Morpheus, Phantasus and Phobetor, collectively the gods of dreams.
  * **Phantasus** \- One of the three Oneiroi; specifically the God of _surreal_ dreams. Appears in dreams in the form of inanimate objects, for some reason. I mean, he _said_ he was surreal…
  * **Phobetor** \- One of the three Oneiroi; specifically the God of nightmares. Appears in dreams in the form of animals, which might explain why so many people are scared of spiders. 
  * **Somnus** \- God of sleep; while he’s great for getting a solid eight hours or even a catnap, you don’t want him to notice if you’re asleep when you shouldn’t be. The praetors don’t often have to punish people who fall asleep on guard duty - Somnus usually gets there first. [Greek = Hypnos] (Natalino’s great great granddad) 
  * **Silenus** \- The king of Nysa, and one of Bacchus’ guiding counsellors in his youth. Nowadays, with Bacchus all grown up, Silenus mostly just joins in with any parties Bacchus is throwing, and spends his time enjoying fine wines and making vines grow to, you guessed it, make wine. 
  * **Veritas** \- One of Saturn’s daughters, the goddess of truth is said to be so elusive that she hid at the bottom of a holy well. I don’t know why she chose a well. No-one’s ever been able to ask her because she’s so hard to get hold of. [Greek = Alethia]



**Glossary**

  * _Ambrosia -_ Forget chocolate, this is the _real_ food of the gods. For demigods, it’s a rapid fix medicine in small doses, and a route to combustion in large ones. The taste is indescribable - or rather, _individual_. It tastes like home and everything good in the world, whatever that is for you.
  * _Bacchae_ _-_ The wild women who follow the god Bacchus. Their charming list of attributes and activities include the hunting and tearing limb from limb of wild animals or - preferably - men, and the drinking of the blood of the aforementioned torn apart animals/people. Not the best neighbours; even without the particularly unpleasant habits they also party a) hard, and b) _constantly_ , so…lots of loud music and drinking, 24/7. Kinda like immortal college students. [Greek = Maeads]
  * _Bacchanalia_ _-_ The ancient festivals of Bacchus, held in March, usually only attended by women.
  * _Denarii -_ The currency of Ancient Rome, New Rome, and by extension the Twelfth Legion. Sadly it isn’t good for vending machines or fast food restaurants, but in the right places it can get you ambrosia, nectar, equipment, and maybe some information.
  * _Lares -_ Guardian deities or spirits, slightly see through, nearly all somewhat old fashioned, and nearly all annoying.
  * _Hyades_ _-_ The rain nymphs of Mount Nysa; after Bacchus was born, Jupiter handed him over to these daughters of Atlas to be raised, seeing as bringing his (latest) illegitimate child home wasn’t going to sit well with Juno. They became rain nymphs when their beloved brother, Hyas, was killed in a hunting accident - their weeping became rain. They literally wept to death, but Jupiter took pity on them and made them a constellation. Now they sort of float about as disembodied rain spirits. Also called the Nysiads, after their home mountain, Mount Nysa.
  * _Nysiads -_ See _Hyades_.
  * _Thyrus -_ A staff of giant fennel tipped with a pine cone, used as spears by the Bacchae. It doesn’t sound that bad, but they’re pretty terrifying up close.




End file.
